Meaning of nature | Babel Free

Definitions

1. The sum of natural forces reified and considered as a sentient being, will, or principle.
2. 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.
   capitalized, often, uncountable
3. The particular way someone or something is, especially
   countable, uncountable
4. by nature, as a result of inborn or inherent qualities; innately.
5. The essential or innate characteristics of a person or thing which will always tend to manifest, especially in contrast to specific contexts, reason, religious duty, upbringing, and personal pretense or effort.
   countable, uncountable
6. the study of the sources and formation of amber. — ambrologic, ambrological, adj.
7. The distinguishing characteristic of a person or thing, understood as its general class, sort, type, etc.
   countable, uncountable
8. the assignment of a humanlike soul to nature. — anthropopsychic, adj.
9. Synonym of caliber: the class of a gun.
   UK, countable, obsolete, uncountable
10. the study of inanimate nature.
11. 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
12. the quality of chemical activities, properties, or relationships.
13. A requirement or powerful impulse of the body's physical form, especially
    countable, uncountable
14. The need to urinate and defecate.
    countable, uncountable
15. a person who advocates the conservation of the natural resources of a country or region. — conservational, adj.
16. Sexual desire.
    countable, uncountable
17. the science of the causes of natural phenomena. — etiologic, aetiologic, etiological, aetiological, adj.
18. Spontaneous love, affection, or reverence, especially between parent and child.
    countable, uncountable
19. A product of the body's physical form, especially semen and vaginal fluids, menstrual fluid, and (obsolete) feces.
    archaic, countable, uncountable
20. the worship of nature. — physiolater, n. — physiolatrous, adj.
21. A part of the body's physical form, especially (obsolete) the female genitalia.
    archaic, countable, uncountable
22. the body of wisdom about nature.
23. produced by natural rather than divine or human forces.

Equivalents

Examples

“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.”

“Nature’s logic was too horrid for him to care for.”

“...they will shout at you, it is no use protesting: it is a case of twice two makes four! Nature does not ask your permission, she has nothing to do with your wishes, and whether you like her laws or dislike them, you are bound to accept her as she is, and consequently all her conclusions. A wall, you see, is a wall... Merciful Heavens! but what do I care for the laws of nature and arithmetic, when, for some reason I dislike those laws and the fact that twice two makes four? Of course I cannot break through the wall by battering my head against it if I really have not the strength to knock it down, but I am not going to be reconciled to it simply because it is a stone wall and I have not the strength.”

“Man was entirely at the mercy of nature—a mere scavenger who eked out a miserable existence as a food-gatherer and an eater of shell-fish.”

“Freamon: She too young for you, boy... They get younger, William. Skinnier too. You don't... 's just the nature of things. Age is age, fat is fat, nature’s nature. Moreland: Pitiful. Freamon: Pitiless. Nature don't care. Nature just is.”

“As in much of biology, the most satisfying truths in ecology derive from manipulative experimentation. Tinker with nature and quantify how it responds.”

“Gómez Ortega... explicitly ordered them to study only fresh plants, in situ, to draw every part, and 'to copy nature exactly without presuming to correct it or decorate it as some draughtsmen are used to doing, adding colours and ornaments drawn from their imagination'.”

“As Hurricane Irma prepares to strike, it's worth remembering that Mother Nature never intended us to live here.”

“The tao of Lao Tzu was a cosmic tao, inner and unwritten, a tao of Nature, while the tao of Confucius was moral and written.”

“Nature doesn't lie.”

“The laws of nature are written in the language of mathematics.”

“Tectonic activity is part of nature, so there's no way to stop earthquakes.”

“Vliss.: ... One touch of nature makes the whole world kin, That all with one consent praise new-borne gaudes, Though they are made and moulded of things past, And goe to dust, that is a little guilt, More laud then guilt ore-dusted.”

“Lady. ...Glamys thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be What thou art promis'd: yet doe I feare thy Nature, It is too full o'th' Milke of humane kindnesse, To catch the neerest way.”

“Nature passes norture.”

“Men may change their Climate, but they cannot their Nature.”

“Domestic animals of a base nature and not fit for food, are not the subjects of theft. This rule includes dogs and cats.”

“His own better nature which... was magnanimous and heroic, moved and won him.”

“The Monophysites held that the two Natures were so united, that although the 'One Christ' was partly Human and partly Divine, His two Natures became by their union only one Nature.”

“Mark hardly knew whether to believe this or not. He already began to suspect that Roswell was something of a humbug, and though it was not in his nature to form a causeless dislike, he certainly did not feel disposed to like Roswell.”

“The phrase ‘nature and nurture’ is a convenient jingle of words, for it separates under two distinct heads the innumerable elements of which personality is composed.”

“Being by nature of a cheerful disposition, the symptom did not surprise his servant, late private of the same famous regiment, who was laying breakfast in an adjoining room.”

“The contrast between nature and grace, between human appetites and interests and religion, is not absolute, but relative.”

“Couples bitching at each other is human nature.”

“Freamon: She too young for you, boy... They get younger, William. Skinnier too. You don't... 's just the nature of things. Age is age, fat is fat, nature's nature. Moreland: Pitiful. Freamon: Pitiless. Nature don't care. Nature just is.”

“Unlike the static conception of nature or nurture, epigenic research demonstrates how genes and environments continuously interact to produce characteristics throughout a lifetime.”

“It's not in my nature to steal.”

“You can't help feeling that way. It's human nature.”

“Power corrupts. That's just the nature of the beast.”

“For the French, it was impossible for them to serve her in that nature.”

“A dispute of this nature caused mischief.”

“Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, of errand not wholly obvious to their fellows, yet of such sort as to call into query alike the nature of their errand and their own relations.”

“And yet, though you could not actually hear what the man was saying, you could not be in any doubt about its general nature.”

“The extent and nature of Bach's influence on Haydn is now due for further reassessment.”

“What was the nature of your relationship with the deceased?”

“The best medium might be petroleum, liquified gas, or something of that nature.”

“...One Hundred of each Nature of Case-Shot...”

“B.L. cartridges have lubricators choked inside the cartridges of 40-pr. and lower natures.”

“Any such corrasiue, sharpe or eager medicine... as the said H. shal think his nature is vnable to suffer...”

“For nature creſſant does not grovve alone / In thevvs and bulkes, but as this temple vvaxes, / The invvard ſervice of the minde and ſoule / Grovves vvide vvithal, […]”

For a human being's vital functions, increasing, do not grow alone / In physical development and bulk, but as this "temple" [i.e., the body] waxes, / The inward operation of the mind and soul / Grows wide with them.

“I returned hungry... and had only snow to supply the calls of nature.”

“The timber... is found to be brittle and effete; or, to use the workman's expression, 'its nature is gone'.”

“Nature is unable to repair the extensive injury.”

“The prison allowance will not support nature.”

“My iron’s just comin’ to natur’.”

“Hungry-groond, ground credited to be so much enchanted that a person passing over it would faint if they did not use something to support nature.”

“He withdrew from the Company to ease Nature.”

“The women tell you to stop because they's feeling the call of nature. If you don't stop they pee in your lorry.”

“I hear the call of nature.”

“She marvelled "What he saw in such a baby "As that prim, silent, cold Aurora Raby?" ...Why Adeline had this slight prejudice ...For me appears a question far too nice, Since Adeline was liberal by Nature; But Nature’s Nature, and has more caprices Than I have time, or will to take to pieces...”

“He had placed a spell on her by means of a cunjer bag... Its effect was to rob her of connubial allure—in her words, ‘it stole her nature’.”

“Every time I felt nature for her, she would rub something on her hands and face to take away my nature.”

“Lady. ... Come you Spirits, That tend on mortall thoughts, vnsex me here, ...make thick my blood, Stop vp th'accesse, and passage to Remorse, That no compunctious visitings of Nature Shake my fell purpose...”

“Have we not seen (the blood of Laius shed) The murd'ring son ascend his parent's bed, Thro' violated Nature force his way, And stain the sacred womb where once he lay?”

“She had no nature, nor indeed any passion but that of money.”

“...I could bear much. I'd not move nor scream While you wrote the red stripes: But there's no nature in you...”

“If a man want to break his wife from some man, he steals this dishcloth... an' he ketches her nachure in this dishcloth...”

“... offer her the Horse, and... wash her Nature with cold Water ...”

“To her fair works did Nature link The human soul that through me ran; And much it grieved my heart to think What man has made of man.”

“The human genius is creative when it copies Nature, and imitative when it aims to invent.”

“Within was a small chamber, chilly as an ice-house, and walled by Nature with solid limestone that was dewy with a cold sweat.”

“Then he commenced to talk, really talk, and inside of two flaps of a herring's fin he had me mesmerized, like Eben Holt's boy at the town hall show. He talked about the ills of humanity, and the glories of health and Nature and service and land knows what all.”

“She mixed furniture with the same fatal profligacy as she mixed drinks, and this outrageous contact between things which were intended by Nature to be kept poles apart gave her an inexpressible thrill.”

CEFR level