Word Meanings - IDEA - Book Publishers vocabulary database

1. The transcript, image, or picture of a visible object, that is formed by the mind; also, a similar image of any object whatever, whether sensible or spiritual. Her sweet idea wandered through his thoughts. Fairfax. Being the right idea of your

Additional info about word: IDEA

1. The transcript, image, or picture of a visible object, that is formed by the mind; also, a similar image of any object whatever, whether sensible or spiritual. Her sweet idea wandered through his thoughts. Fairfax. Being the right idea of your father Both in your form and nobleness of mind. Shak. This representation or likeness of the object being transmitted from thence to the imagination, and lodged there for the view and observation of the pure intellect, is aptly and properly called its idea. P. Browne. 2. A general notion, or a conception formed by generalization. Alice had not the slightest idea what latitude was. L. Caroll. 3. Hence: Any object apprehended, conceived, or thought of, by the mind; a notion, conception, or thought; the real object that is conceived or thought of. Whatsoever the mind perceives in itself, or as the immediate object of perception, thought, or undersanding, that I call idea. Locke. 4. A belief, option, or doctrine; a characteristic or controlling principle; as, an essential idea; the idea of development. That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one. Johnson. What is now "idea" for us How infinite the fall of this word, since the time where Milton sang of the Creator contemplating his newly- created world, -"how it showed . . . Answering his great idea," -to its present use, when this person "has an idea that the train has started," and the other "had no idea that the dinner would be so bad!" Trench. 5. A plan or purpose of action; intention; design. I shortly afterwards set off for that capital, with an idea of undertaking while there the translation of the work. W. Irving. 6. A rational conception; the complete conception of an object when thought of in all its essential elements or constituents; the necessary metaphysical or constituent attributes and relations, when conceived in the abstract. 7. A fiction object or picture created by the imagination; the same when proposed as a pattern to be copied, or a standard to be reached; one of the archetypes or patterns of created things, conceived by the Platonists to have excited objectively from eternity in the mind of the Deity. Thence to behold this new-created world, The addition of his empire, how it showed In prospect from his throne, how good, how fair, Answering his great idea. Milton. Note: "In England, Locke may be said to have been the first who naturalized the term in its Cartesian universality. When, in common language, employed by Milton and Dryden, after Descartes, as before him by Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, Hooker, etc., the meaning is Platonic." Sir W. Hamilton. Abstract idea, Association of ideas, etc. See under Abstract, Association, etc. Syn. -- Notion; conception; thought; sentiment; fancy; image; perception; impression; opinion; belief; observation; judgment; consideration; view; design; intention; purpose; plan; model; pattern. There is scarcely any other word which is subjected to such abusive treatment as is the word idea, in the very general and indiscriminative way in which it is employed, as it is used variously to signify almost any act, state, or content of thought.

Possible synonyms: (Same meaning words of IDEA)

• Conceit
• Idea
• notion
• thought
• affectation
• vanity
• abstraction
• imagination
• conception
• whim
• vagary
• egotism
• Image
• Statue
• likeness
• representation
• effigy
• copy
• metaphor
• idea
• fiction
• shadow
• picture
• vision
• Jot
• Tittle
• cipher
• trifle
• rush
• fig
• particle
• atom
• bit
• scrap
• morsel
• fraction
• iota
• whit
• Notion
• Apprehension
• judgment
• opinion
• belief
• expectation
• sentiment
• Opinion
• Conviction
• view
• impression
• estimation
• theory

Related words: (words related to IDEA)

• STATUELESS
  Without a statue.
• JUDGMENT
  The final award; the last sentence. Note: Judgment, abridgment, acknowledgment, and lodgment are in England sometimes written, judgement, abridgement, acknowledgement, and lodgement. Note: Judgment is used adjectively in many self-explaining
• METAPHORIST
  One who makes metaphors.
• OPINIONATOR
  An opinionated person; one given to conjecture. South.
• STATUED
  Adorned with statues. "The statued hall." Longfellow. "Statued niches." G. Eliot.
• SHADOWY
  1. Full of shade or shadows; causing shade or shadow. "Shadowy verdure." Fenton. This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods. Shak. 2. Hence, dark; obscure; gloomy; dim. "The shadowy past." Longfellow. 3. Not brightly luminous; faintly light. The moon
• AFFECTATIONIST
  One who exhibits affectation. Fitzed. Hall.
• VISIONARY
  1. Of or pertaining to a visions or visions; characterized by, appropriate to, or favorable for, visions. The visionary hour When musing midnight reigns. Thomson. 2. Affected by phantoms; disposed to receive impressions on the imagination; given
• TITTLEBAT
  The three-spined stickleback.
• TRIFLE
  trifle, probably the same word as F. truffe truffle, the word being 1. A thing of very little value or importance; a paltry, or trivial, affair. With such poor trifles playing. Drayton. Trifles light as air Are to the jealous confirmation strong
• APPREHENSION
  1. The act of seizing or taking hold of; seizure; as, the hand is an organ of apprehension. Sir T. Browne. 2. The act of seizing or taking by legal process; arrest; as, the felon, after his apprehension, escaped. 3. The act of grasping with the
• SCRAPING
  1. The act of scraping; the act or process of making even, or reducing to the proper form, by means of a scraper. 2. Something scraped off; that which is separated from a substance, or is collected by scraping; as, the scraping of the street.
• THOUGHT
  imp. & p. p. of Think.
• CONVICTION
  A judgment of condemnation entered by a court having jurisdiction; the act or process of finding guilty, or the state of being found guilty of any crime by a legal tribunal. Conviction may accrue two ways. Blackstone. 3. The act of convincing of
• SENTIMENTALLY
  In a sentimental manner.
• ABSTRACTION
  The act process of leaving out of consideration one or more properties of a complex object so as to attend to others; analysis. Thus, when the mind considers the form of a tree by itself, or the color of the leaves as separate from their size or
• IMAGINATIONALISM
  Idealism. J. Grote.
• CIPHER
  A character which, standing by itself, expresses nothing, but when placed at the right hand of a whole number, increases its value tenfold. 2. One who, or that which, has no weight or influence. Here he was a mere cipher. W. Irving. 3. A character
• THOUGHTLESS
  1. Lacking thought; careless; inconsiderate; rash; as, a thoughtless person, or act. 2. Giddy; gay; dissipated. Johnson. 3. Deficient in reasoning power; stupid; dull. Thoughtless as monarch oaks that shade the plain. Dryden. -- Thought"less*ly,
• CONCEPTIONAL
  Pertaining to conception.
• FORESHADOW
  To shadow or typi Dryden.
• SUPERCONCEPTION
  Superfetation. Sir T. Browne.
• UNEXPECTATION
  Absence of expectation; want of foresight. Bp. Hall.
• VORTEX THEORY
  The theory, advanced by Thomson on the basis of investigation by Helmholtz, that the atoms are vortically moving ring-shaped masses (or masses of other forms having a similar internal motion) of a homogeneous, incompressible, frictionless fluid.
• DEPICTURE
  To make a picture of; to paint; to picture; to depict. Several persons were depictured in caricature. Fielding.
• MISDIVISION
  Wrong division.
• DINGDONG THEORY
  The theory which maintains that the primitive elements of language are reflex expressions induced by sensory impressions; that is, as stated by Max Müller, the creative faculty gave to each general conception as it thrilled for the first
• DIVISIONARY
  Divisional.