determination

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun Firmness of purpose; resolve.
• noun A fixed intention or resolution.
• noun The ascertaining or fixing of the quantity, quality, position, or character of something.
• noun The result of such ascertaining.
• noun The act of making or arriving at a decision.
• noun The decision reached: synonym: decision.
• noun The settling of a question or case by an authoritative decision or pronouncement, especially by a judicial body.
• noun The decision or pronouncement made.
• noun The bringing about of a result or outcome.
• noun Archaic A fixed movement or tendency toward an object or end.
• noun The defining of a concept through its constituent elements.
• noun The qualification of a concept or proposition to render it more definite or specific.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun An ending; a putting an end to; termination: as, the determination of an estate.
• noun Delimitation; the act of setting bounds to or of determining the limits of; specifically, assignment to the proper place in a classification or series.
• noun A determining or deciding, as after consideration or examination; specifically, definite or authoritative judicial settlement, as of a controversy or suit.
• noun A decision arrived at or promulgated; an authoritative or final ruling; a determinate opinion or conclusion.
• noun The mental act of deciding or resolving; the fixing or settling of a mental purpose; the act of resolve.
• noun A state of mental decision or resolution with regard to something; determined purpose; fixed intention: as, determination to succeed in an enterprise; his determination was inflexible.
• noun The quality of being determined; fixedness of purpose; decision of character; resoluteness: as, a man of determination.
• noun In old medicine, the turning or determining point; the crisis.
• noun Tendency or direction.
• noun Of the blood: abnormal afflux or flow: as, determination of blood to the head.
• noun The solution of a problem, mathematical or other; an ascertainment of any magnitude or the value of any quantity; especially, a scientific evaluation based upon exact physical measurements: as, a determination of the length of the seconds-pendulum.
• noun In logic: The process of adding characters to a notion, and thus rendering it more definite, whether this is done by limiting its scope or by an increase of information.
• noun The differentiating character itself that is added in this process.
• noun In Oxford and other old universities: A solemn disputation in which the respondent is a bachelor of arts, and which is preparatory to graduation as master of arts.
• noun A disquisition or other act substituted in recent times for the old disputation.
• noun A discussion of a question according to the scholastic method, after the model of a disputation.
• noun Synonyms Conclusion, settlement, termination.
• noun Resolution, etc. (see decision), firmness.
• noun In botany and zoology, the identification, classification, and naming of specimens of plants or animals.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun The act of determining, or the state of being determined.
• noun Bringing to an end; termination; limit.
• noun Direction or tendency to a certain end; impulsion.
• noun The quality of mind which reaches definite conclusions; decision of character; resoluteness.
• noun The state of decision; a judicial decision, or ending of controversy.
• noun That which is determined upon; result of deliberation; purpose; conclusion formed; fixed resolution.
• noun (Med.) A flow, rush, or tendency to a particular part.
• noun (Physical Sciences) The act, process, or result of any accurate measurement, as of length, volume, weight, intensity, etc.
• noun The act of defining a concept or notion by giving its essential constituents.
• noun The addition of a differentia to a concept or notion, thus limiting its extent; -- the opposite of generalization.
• noun (Nat. Hist.) The act of determining the relations of an object, as regards genus and species; the referring of minerals, plants, or animals, to the species to which they belong; classification.