nature
/ˈneɪ̯.t͡ʃəɹ/
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.98 in modern English
Meaning
noun
The way things are, the totality of all things in the physical universe and their order, especially the physical world in contrast to spiritual realms and flora and fauna as distinct from human conventions, art, and technology.
Uncountable
noun
The particular way someone or something is, especially
British usage; Countable; Obsolete; Uncountable
noun
The vital functions or strength of someone or something, especially (now dialect) as requiring nourishment or careful maintenance or (medicine) as a force of regeneration without special treatment.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
A requirement or powerful impulse of the body's physical form, especially
Countable; Uncountable
noun
A requirement or powerful impulse of the body's physical form, especially
Countable; Uncountable
noun
A requirement or powerful impulse of the body's physical form, especially
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "I oft admire How Nature, wise and frugal, could commit Such disproportions."
- "In the works of nature we find, in many instances, beauty and sublimity involved among circumstances, which are either indifferent, or which obstruct the general effect: and it is only by a train of experiments, that we can separate those circumstances from the rest... Accordingly, the inexperienced artist, when he copies nature, will copy her servilely... and the beauties of his performances will be encumbered with a number of superfluous or disagreeable concomitants. Experience and observation alone can enable him to make this determination: to exhibit the principles of beauty pure and unadulterated, and to form a creation of his own, more faultless, than ever fell under the observation of his senses."
- "Most persons in striving after effect lose the likeness when they should go together to produce a good effect you must copy Nature: leave Nature for an imaginary effect & you lose all. Nature as Nature cannot be exceeded, and as your object it [is] to copy Nature twere the hight of folly to look at any thing else to produce that copy."
- "Nature has caprices which art cannot imitate."
- "Nothing was more common, in those days, than to interpret all meteoric appearances, and other natural phenomena, that occurred with less regularity than the rise and set of sun and moon, as so many revelations from a supernatural source... But what shall we say, when an individual discovers a revelation, addressed to himself alone, on the same vast sheet of record! In such a case, it could only be the symptom of a highly disordered mental state, when a man, rendered morbidly self-contemplative by long, intense, and secret pain, had extended his egotism over the whole expanse of nature, until the firmament itself should appear no more than a fitting page for his soul's history and fate."
- "Nature has good intentions, of course, but, as Aristotle once said, she cannot carry them out. When I look at a landscape I cannot help seeing all its defects."
Etymology
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *ǵenh₁-, nature, nātūra
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈneɪ̯.t͡ʃəɹ/
- British English: /ˈneɪ̯.tʃə/