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The smallest unit of language that has a particular meaning and can be expressed by itself; the smallest discrete, meaningful unit of language. (contrast morpheme.)
1897, Ouida, “The New Woman”, in An Altruist and Four Essays, page 239:
But every word, whether written or spoken, which urges the woman to antagonism against the man, every word which is written or spoken to try and make of her a hybrid, self-contained opponent of men, makes a rift in the lute to which the world looks for its sweetest music.
1986, David Barrat, Media Sociology, →ISBN, page 112:
The word, whether written or spoken, does not look like or sound like its meaning — it does not resemble its signified. We only connect the two because we have learnt the code — language. Without such knowledge, 'Maggie' would just be a meaningless pattern of shapes or sounds.
2009, Jack Fitzgerald, Viva La Evolucin, →ISBN, page 233:
Brian and Abby signed the wordclothing, in which the thumbs brush down the chest as though something is hanging there. They both spoke the wordclothing. Brian then signed the word for change, […]
Swearing doesn't just mean what we now understand by "dirty words". It is entwined, in social and linguistic history, with the other sort of swearing: vows and oaths. Consider for a moment the origins of almost any word we have for bad language – "profanity", "curses", "oaths" and "swearing" itself.
The smallest discrete unit of spoken language with a particular meaning, composed of one or more phonemes and one or more morphemes
1894, Alex. R. Mackwen, “The Samaritan Passover”, in Littell's Living Age, volume 1, number 6:
Then all was silent save the voice of the high priest, whose words grew louder and louder, […]
Mr. Cooke at once began a tirade against the residents of Asquith for permitting a sandy and generally disgraceful condition of the roads. So roundly did he vituperate the inn management in particular, and with such a loud flow of words, that I trembled lest he should be heard on the veranda.
2006 Feb. 17, Graham Linehan, The IT Crowd, Season 1, Episode 4:
I can't believe you want me back. You've got Jen to thank for that. Her words the other day moved me deeply. Very deeply indeed. Really? What did she say. Like I remember! Point is it's the effect of her words that's important.
The smallest discrete unit of written language with a particular meaning, composed of one or more letters or symbols and one or more morphemes
Polonius: What do you read, my lord? Hamlet: Words, words, words.
2003, Jan Furman, Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon: A Casebook, →ISBN, page 194:
The name was a confused gift of love from her father, who could not read the word but picked it out of the Bible for its visual shape, […]
2009, Stanislas Dehaene, Reading in the Brain: The New Science of How We Read, →ISBN:
Well-meaning academics even introduced spelling absurdities such as the “s” in the word “island,” a misguided Renaissance attempt to restore the etymology of the [unrelated] Latin word insula.
A sequence of letters, characters, or sounds, considered as a discreteentity, though it does not necessarily belong to a language or have a meaning.
1974, Thinking Goes to School: Piaget's Theory in Practice, →ISBN, page 183:
In still another variation, the nonsense word is presented and the teacher asks, "What sound was in the beginning of the word?" "In the middle?" and so on. The child should always respond with the phoneme; he should not use letter labels.
All 15.5 million ‘words’ (or so–the exact length depends on the repeat sequences, which vary greatly) in the twenty-second chapter of the human autobiography have been read and written down in English letters: 47 million As, Cs, Gs and Ts.
2003, How To Do Everything with Your Tablet PC, →ISBN, page 278:
I wrote a nonsense word, "umbalooie," in the Input Panel's Writing Pad. Input Panel converted it to "cembalos" and displayed it in the Text Preview pane.
2006, Scribal Habits and Theological Influences in the Apocalypse, →ISBN, page 141:
Here the scribe has dropped the με from καθημενος, thereby creating the nonsense word καθηνος.
2013, The Cognitive Neuropsychology of Language, →ISBN, page 91:
If M. V. has sustained impairment to a phonological output process common to reading and repetition, we might anticipate that her mispronunciations will partially reflect the underlying phonemic form of the nonsense word.
(computing) A fixed-size group of bits handled as a unit by a machine and which can be stored in or retrieved from a typical register (so that it has the same size as such a register).
1997, John L. Hennessy with David A. Patterson, Computer Organization and Design, 2nd edition, San Francisco, California: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., §3.3, page 109:
The size of a register in the MIPS architecture is 32 bits; groups of 32 bits occur so frequently that they are given the name word in the MIPS architecture.
There is only one other point on which I offer a word of remark.
1945 April 1, Sebastian Haffner, The Observer:
"The Kaiser laid down his arms at a quarter to twelve. In me, however, they have an opponent who ceases fighting only at five minutes past twelve," said Hitler some time ago. He has never spoken a truer word.
2011, David Bellos, Is That a Fish in Your Ear?, Penguin, published 2012, page 126:
Despite appearances to the contrary [...] dragomans stuck rigidly to their brief, which was not to translate the Sultan's words, but his word.
2011, John Lehew (senior), The Encouragement of Peter, →ISBN, page 108:
In what sense is God's Word living? No other word, whether written or spoken, has the power that the Bible has to change lives.
(obsolete outside certain phrases) A watchword or rallying cry, a verbal signal (even when consisting of multiple words).
1943 November – 1944 February (date written; published 1945 August 17), George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Animal Farm, London: Secker & Warburg, published May 1962, →OCLC:
Word had gone round during the day that old Major, the prize Middle White boar, had had a strange dream on the previous night and wished to communicate it to the other animals.
Have you had any word from John yet?
I've tried for weeks to get word, but I still don't know where she is or if she's all right.
And that worde was made flesshe, and dwelt amonge vs, and we sawe the glory off yt, as the glory off the only begotten sonne off the father, which worde was full of grace, and verite.
And so the Word had breath, and wrought With human hands the creed of creeds In loveliness of perfect deeds, More strong than all poetic thought; […]
Usage notes
In English and other languages with a tradition of space-delimited writing, it is customary to treat "word" as referring to any sequence of characters delimited by spaces. However, this is not applicable to languages such as Chinese and Japanese, which are normally written without spaces, or to languages such as Vietnamese, which are written with spaces delimiting syllables.
In computing, the size (length) of a word, while being fixed in a particular machine or processor family design, can be different in different designs, for many reasons. See Word (computer architecture) for a full explanation.
Against him […] who could word heaven and earth out of nothing, and can when he pleases word them into nothing again.
1994, “Liminal Postmodernisms”, in Postmodern Studies, volume 8, page 162:
"Postcolonialism" might well be another linguistic construct, desperately begging for a referent that will never show up, simply because it never existed on its own and was literally worded into existence by the very term that pretends to be born from it.
2013, Carla Mae Streeter, Foundations of Spirituality: The Human and the Holy, →ISBN, page 92:
The being of each person is worded into existence in the Word, […]
2004, Shannon Holmes, Never Go Home Again: A Novel, page 218:
"[…] Know what I'm sayin'?" / "Word!" the other man strongly agreed. "Let's do this — "
2007, Gabe Rotter, Duck Duck Wally: A Novel, page 105:
"[…] Not bad at all, man. Worth da wait, dawg. Word." / "You liked it?" I asked dumbly, stoned still, and feeling victorious. / "Yeah, man," said Oral B. "Word up. […]"
2007, Relentless Aaron, The Last Kingpin, page 34:
Forms the present passive voice when followed by a past participle
Die kat word gevoer.
The cat is being fed.
Usage notes
The verb has an archaic preterite werd: Die kat werd gevoer. (“The cat was fed.”) In contemporary Afrikaans the perfect is used instead: Die kat is gevoer.
1862, 唐景星 [Tong King-sing], 英語集全, volume 6, marginalia, page 78; republished as “Pidgin English texts from the Chinese English Instructor”, in Michelle Li, Stephen Matthews and Geoff P. Smith, editor, Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics, volume 10, number 1, 2005, pages 79-167:
挨仙㕭𭉉 *aai1 sin1[sen1] ju1wut3 I send you word. I will send you word.
Ȝe knowe ek that in fourme of ſpeche is chaunge / With-inne a thousand ȝeer, and wordes tho / That hadden pris now wonder nyce and ſtraunge / Us thenketh hem, and ȝet thei ſpake hem so / And ſpedde as wel in loue as men now do
You also know that the form of language is in flux; / within a thousand years, words / that had currency; really weird and bizarre / they seem to us now, but they still spoke them / and accomplished as much in love as men do now.