system

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

• noun A group of interacting, interrelated, or interdependent elements forming a complex whole, especially.
• noun An organism as a whole, especially with regard to its vital processes or functions.
• noun A group of physiologically or anatomically related organs or parts.
• noun A group of interacting mechanical or electrical components.
• noun A network of structures and channels, as for communication, travel, or distribution.
• noun A network of related computer software, hardware, and data transmission devices.
• noun An organized set of interrelated ideas or principles.
• noun A social, economic, or political organizational form.
• noun An arrangement or configuration of classification or measurement.
• noun An organized and coordinated method; a procedure: synonym: method.
• noun A naturally occurring group of objects or phenomena.
• noun Geology A set of rock strata grouped by geologic time period and divided into series.
• noun Harmonious interaction or order.
• noun The prevailing social order; the establishment. Used with the.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun Any combination or assemblage of things adjusted as a regular and connected whole; a number of things or parts so connected as to make one complex whole; things connected according to a scheme: as, a system of canals for irrigation; a system of pulleys; a system of railroads; a mountain system; hence, more specifically, a number of heavenly bodies connected together and acting on each other according to certain laws: as, the solar system; the system of Jupiter and his satellites.
• noun A plan or scheme according to which ideas or things are connected into a whole; a regular union of principles or facts forming one entire whole; an assemblage of facts, or of principles and conclusions, scientifically arranged, or disposed according to certain mutual relations so as to form a complete whole; a connected view of all the truths or principles of some department of knowledge or action: as, a system of philosophy; a system of government; a system of education; a system of divinity; a system of botany or of chemistry; a system of railroading: often equivalent to method.
• noun The scheme of all created things considered as one whole; the universe.
• noun Regular method or order; plan: as, to have no system in one's business or study.
• noun In astronomy, any hypothesis or theory of the disposition and arrangements of the heavenly bodies by which their phenomena, their motions, changes, etc., are explained: as, the Ptolemaic system; the Copernican system; a system of the universe, or of the world.
• noun In the fine arts, a collection of the rules and principles upon which an artist works.
• noun In Byzantine music, an interval conceived of as compounded of two lesser intervals, as an octave or a tetrachord.
• noun In medieval and modern music, a series of tones arranged and classified for artistic use, like a mode or scale.
• noun In modern musical notation, two or more staffs braced together for concerted music.
• noun In ancient prosody, a group of two or more periods; by extension, a single period of more than two or three cola; a hypermetron.
• noun In biology: An assemblage of parts or organs of the same or similar tissues.
• noun Hence— In a wider sense, a concurrence of parts or organs in some function.
• noun Hence— In the widest sense, the entire body as a physiological unity or anatomical whole: as, to take food into the system; to have one's system out of order.
• noun In ascidiology, the cœnobium of those compound tunicates which have a common cloaca, as the Botryllidæ.
• noun One of the larger divisions of the geological series: as, the Devonian system; the Silurian system.
• noun In natural history: In the abstract, classification; any method of arranging, disposing, or setting forth animals and plants, or any series of these, in orderly sequence, as by classes, orders, families, genera, etc., with due coördination and relative subordination of the several groups; also, the principles of such classification; taxonomy: as, the morphological system; a physiological system.
• noun In the concrete, any zoölogical or botanical classification; any actual arrangement which is devised for the purpose of classifying and naming objects of natural history; a formal scheme, schedule, or inventory of such objects, or a systematic treatise upon them: as, the Linnean or artificial system of plants; Cuvier's system of classification; the quinarian system.
• noun See the qualifying words.
• noun See the qualifying words.

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

• noun An assemblage of objects arranged in regular subordination, or after some distinct method, usually logical or scientific; a complete whole of objects related by some common law, principle, or end; a complete exhibition of essential principles or facts, arranged in a rational dependence or connection; a regular union of principles or parts forming one entire thing
• noun Hence, the whole scheme of created things regarded as forming one complete plan of whole; the universe.
• noun Regular method or order; formal arrangement; plan.
• noun (Mus.) The collection of staves which form a full score. See Score, n.
• noun (Biol.) An assemblage of parts or organs, either in animal or plant, essential to the performance of some particular function or functions which as a rule are of greater complexity than those manifested by a single organ; ; hence, the whole body as a functional unity.
• noun (Zoöl.) One of the stellate or irregular clusters of intimately united zooids which are imbedded in, or scattered over, the surface of the common tissue of many compound ascidians.
• noun etc. See under Block, Conservative, etc.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A collection of organized things; as in a solar system.
• noun A way of organising or planning.
• noun A whole composed of relationships among the members.
• noun music A set of staffs that indicate instruments or sounds that are to be played simultaneously.
• noun mathematics A set of equations involving the same variables, which are to be solved simultaneously.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun the living body considered as made up of interdependent components forming a unified whole