Material
Material is anything made of matter, constituted of one or more substances. Wood, cement, hydrogen, air and water are all examples of materials. Sometimes the term "material" is used more narrowly to refer to substances or components with certain physical properties that are used as inputs to production or manufacturing. In this sense, materials are the parts required to make something else, from buildings and art to stars and computers.
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Some articles on material:
... Exhibition in London, calling the material he produced "Parkesine." Derived from cellulose, Parkesine could be heated, molded, and retain its shape when cooled ... inventor John Wesley Hyatt developed a plastic material he named Celluloid, improving on Parkes' invention so that it could be processed into finished form ... This machine also allowed material to be mixed before injection, so that colored or recycled plastic could be added to virgin material and mixed ...
... In materials science, ductility is a solid material's ability to deform under tensile stress this is often characterized by the material's ability to be stretched into a wire ... Malleability, a similar property, is a material's ability to deform under compressive stress this is often characterized by the material's ability to form a thin sheet by hammering or rolling ... are aspects of plasticity, the extent to which a solid material can be plastically deformed without fracture ...
... or adsorption with the absorbing or adsorbing material becoming physically 'changed' somewhat, by an increase in volume, stickiness, or other physical characteristic of the material, as water molecules become 'su ... A hydroscopic material will tend to become damp and "cake" when exposed to moist air (such as salt in salt shakers during humid weather) ... Because of their affinity for atmospheric moisture, hygroscopic materials might necessitate their being stored in sealed containers ...
... usually happens when the deformations are large or if the material changes its properties under deformations ... An anelastic material is a special case of a viscoelastic material an anelastic material will fully recover to its original state on the removal of load ...
... The material's unique properties have found niche use in medical and scientific applications ... (such as Power Putty and TheraPutty) alter the material's properties, offering different levels of resistance ... The material is also used therapeutically for stress reduction ...
More definitions of "material":
- (adj): Having substance or capable of being treated as fact; not imaginary.
Synonyms: substantial, real
- (adj): Concerned with worldly rather than spiritual interests.
Example: "Material possessions"; "material wealth"; "material comforts"
- (adj): Directly relevant to a matter especially a law case.
Example: "His support made a material difference"; "evidence material to the issue at hand"; "facts likely to influence the judgment are called material facts"; "a material witness"
- (adj): Concerned with or affecting physical as distinct from intellectual or psychological well-being.
Example: "Material needs"; "the moral and material welfare of all good citizens"- T.Roosevelt
- (adj): Derived from or composed of matter.
Example: "The material universe"
- (adj): Having material or physical form or substance.
Synonyms: corporeal
- (noun): The tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object.
Example: "Coal is a hard black material"
Synonyms: stuff
- (noun): Things needed for doing or making something.
Example: "Writing materials"; "useful teaching materials"
- (noun): Artifact made by weaving or felting or knitting or crocheting natural or synthetic fibers.
Example: "She measured off enough material for a dress"
Synonyms: fabric, cloth, textile
- (noun): Information (data or ideas or observations) that can be used or reworked into a finished form.
Example: "The archives provided rich material for a definitive biography"
Famous quotes containing the word material:
“Would it not be worth while to discover nature in Milton? be native to the universe? I, too, love Concord best, but I am glad when I discover, in oceans and wildernesses far away, the material of a million Concords: indeed, I am lost, unless I discover them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What persuades men and women to mistake each other from time to time for gods or vermin is ideology. One can understand well enough how human beings may struggle and murder for good material reasons—reasons connected, for instance, with their physical survival. It is much harder to grasp how they may come to do so in the name of something as apparently abstract as ideas. Yet ideas are what men and women live by, and will occasionally die for.”
—Terry Eagleton (b. 1943)
“And what avails it that science has come to treat space and time as simply forms of thought, and the material world as hypothetical, and withal our pretension of property and even of self-hood are fading with the rest, if, at last, even our thoughts are not finalities, but the incessant flowing and ascension reach these also, and each thought which yesterday was a finality, to-day is yielding to a larger generalization?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)