definition

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

• noun A statement of the meaning of a word, phrase, or term, as in a dictionary entry.
• noun A statement or description of the fundamental character or scope of something.
• noun The act or process of stating a precise meaning or significance; formulation of a meaning.
• noun The state of being clearly outlined.
• noun The level of detail in a recording, production, or digital encoding of an image or sound.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The determination of the limits or outlines of a thing; a marking out; the state of being clearly marked out or outlined; specifically, in optics, the defining power of a lens—that is, its ability to give a clear, distinct image of an object in all its important details. This depends upon the freedom of the lens from spherical and chromatic aberration.
• noun The act of stating the signification of a word or phrase, or the essential properties of a thing.
• noun A statement of the signification of a word or phrase, or of what is essential to the conception of any given thing; an explanation of how any given kind is distinguished from all other kinds.

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

• noun The act of defining; determination of the limits.
• noun Act of ascertaining and explaining the signification; a description of a thing by its properties; an explanation of the meaning of a word or term
• noun rare Description; sort.
• noun (Logic) An exact enunciation of the constituents which make up the logical essence.
• noun (Opt.) Distinctness or clearness, as of an image formed by an optical instrument; precision in detail.

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

• noun semantics A statement of the meaning of a word or word group or a sign or symbol (dictionary definitions).
• noun A statement expressing the essential nature of something; formulation
• noun The action or process of defining.
• noun The act of defining; determination of the limits.
• noun A product of defining.
• noun The action or power of describing, explaining, or making definite and clear.
• noun Clarity of visual presentation, distinctness of outline or detail.
• noun Clarity, especially of musical sound in reproduction.
• noun Sharp demarcation of outlines or limits.
• noun bodybuilding The degree to which individual muscles are distinct on the body.
• noun programming A statement which provides a previous delcaration with a value or body of a subroutine (in the case of function).

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

• noun a concise explanation of the meaning of a word or phrase or symbol
• noun clarity of outline