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.
• noun A piece of cleared or cultivated ground, or of land suitable for pasture or tillage; specifically, any part of a farm inclosed or set apart from the rest, as for a special use, except a garden, a wood-lot, or an orchard, and the appurtenances of the buildings: as, a wheat-field, or a field of potatoes.
• noun Any piece of open ground set apart or used for a special purpose: as, ableaching-field.
• noun Specifically In base-ball, cricket, and similar games: The ground on which the game is played; more specifically, in base-ball, that part of the ground on which the fielders play, and known as in-field, out-field, right-, center-, and left-field, according to the station of the corresponding players. See .
• noun The fielders collectively: as, the work of the field was excellent.
• noun Any continuous extent of surface considered as analogous to a level expanse of ground: as, a field of ice or snow. See ice-field.