field

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

• noun A broad, level, open expanse of land.
• noun A meadow.
• noun A cultivated expanse of land, especially one devoted to a particular crop.
• noun A portion of land or a geologic formation containing a specified natural resource.
• noun A wide unbroken expanse, as of ice.
• noun A battleground.
• noun Archaic A battle.
• noun The scene or an area of military operations or maneuvers.
• noun A background area, as on a flag, painting, or coin.
• noun Heraldry The background of a shield or one of the divisions of the background.
• noun An area or setting of practical activity or application outside an office, school, factory, or laboratory.
• noun An area or region where business activities are conducted.
• noun An area in which an athletic event takes place, especially the area inside or near to a running track, where field events are held.
• noun In baseball, the positions on defense or the ability to play defense.
• noun In baseball, one of the three sections of the outfield.
• noun A range, area, or subject of human activity, interest, or knowledge.
• noun The contestants or participants in a competition or athletic event, especially those other than the favorite or winner.
• noun The body of riders following a pack of hounds in hunting.
• noun The people running in an election for a political office.
• noun Mathematics A set of elements having two operations, designated addition and multiplication, satisfying the conditions that multiplication is distributive over addition, that the set is a group under addition, and that the elements with the exception of the additive identity form a group under multiplication.
• noun Physics A region of space characterized by a physical property, such as gravitational or electromagnetic force or fluid pressure, having a determinable value at every point in the region.
• noun The usually circular area in which the image is rendered by the lens system of an optical instrument.
• noun An element of a database record in which one piece of information is stored.
• noun A space, as on an online form or request for information, that accepts the input of text.
• adjective Growing, cultivated, or living in fields or open land.
• adjective Made, used, or carried on in the field.
• adjective Working, operating, or active in the field.
• intransitive verb Sports To catch or pick up (a ball) and often make a throw to another player, especially in baseball.
• intransitive verb To respond to or deal with.
• intransitive verb Sports To place in the playing area.
• intransitive verb To nominate in an election.
• intransitive verb To put into action; deploy.
• intransitive verb To enter (data) into a field.
• intransitive verb To play as a fielder.
• idiom (take the field) To begin or resume activity, as in a sport or military operations.

from The Century Dictionary.

• In chem. industries, to induce oxidation or other change by exposing to the air and solar heat. A term not in general use.
• In baseball and cricket, to catch or stop and return to the necessary place: as, to field the ball.
• To take to the field; do anything in the field, as exploring, fighting, or searching for food.
• In base-ball and cricket, to act as a fielder. Also (in cricket) to fag out.
• noun Specifically, in electric machines, that part of the structure in which the magnetic flux is excited. The electrical or mechanical power is produced by rotation of the armature in the magnetic field or of the magnetic field in the armature. See cuts under armature.
• noun In mathematics, same as domain, 8.