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Information
Definitions
- 1 Something that provides a definitive characterization or description of the nature and attributes of a specified entity. uncountable, usually
"And now we come to the third keystone, information.⁸ Information may be thought of as a reduction in entropy—as the ingredient that distinguishes an orderly, structured system from the vast set of random, useless ones.⁹ Imagine pages of random characters tapped out by a monkey at a typewriter, or a stretch of white noise from a radio tuned between channels, or a screenful of confetti from a corrupted computer file. Each of these objects can take trillions of different forms, each as boring as the next. But now suppose that the devices are controlled by a signal that arranges the characters or sound waves or pixels into a pattern that correlates with something in the world: the Declaration of Independence, the opening bars of “Hey Jude,” a cat wearing sunglasses. We say that the signal transmits information about the Declaration or the song or the cat.¹⁰"
- 2 (communication theory) a numerical measure of the uncertainty of an outcome wordnet
- 3 Things that are or can be known about a given topic; communicable knowledge of something. uncountable, usually
"I need some more information about this issue."
- 4 knowledge acquired through study or experience or instruction wordnet
- 5 The act of informing or imparting knowledge; notification. uncountable, usually
"For your information, I did this because I wanted to."
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- 6 a message received and understood wordnet
- 7 A statement of criminal activity brought before a judge or magistrate; in the UK, used to inform a magistrate of an offence and request a warrant; in the US, an accusation brought before a judge without a grand jury indictment. countable, usually
"On May 21, 1792, the Attorney General filed an information against Paine charging him with seditious libel."
- 8 formal accusation of a crime wordnet
- 9 The act of informing against someone, passing on incriminating knowledge; accusation. obsolete, uncountable, usually
- 10 a collection of facts from which conclusions may be drawn wordnet
- 11 The systematic imparting of knowledge; education, training. archaic, uncountable, usually
- 12 The creation of form; the imparting of a given quality or characteristic; forming, animation. archaic, uncountable, usually
- 13 The meaning that a human assigns to data by means of the known conventions used in its representation. formal, uncountable, usually
- 14 Divine inspiration. uncountable, usually
"But there was no information, and so we continued And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon"
- 15 A service provided by telephone which provides listed telephone numbers of a subscriber. uncountable, usually
- 16 Any unambiguous abstract data, the smallest possible unit being the bit. uncountable, usually
- 17 The output resulting from the systematic collection, manipulation and organization of raw data into a structured, interpretable format. uncountable, usually
- 18 Any ordered sequence of symbols (or signals) (that could contain a message). uncountable, usually
Etymology
From Middle English enformacioun, informacioun, borrowed from Anglo-Norman informacioun, enformation, Old French information, from Latin īnfōrmātiō (“formation, conception; education”), from the participle stem of īnformāre (“to inform”). Equivalent to inform + -ation.
See also for "information"
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