The meaning of Definitions

Logico-Semantic Units (or Elements): Knowledge, Content, Idea,
Concept, Law, Principle, Definition, Attribute, Class, Individual,
Property, Truth, Proposition, Reasoning

Definition: A phrase signifying the essence of a thing; a description of an entity (word,
conception, thing) by its genus and differentia (properties, attributes, or relations); proving a thing’s essential nature; a set of words signifying precisely what a name signifies; the statement of a thing’s nature, a statement of the meaning of the term (a word or phrase or symbol);‘an equivalent nominal formula’; ‘to define is to determine what something is, its content and meaning, nature and substance’.

Meanings: description, explanation, exposition, interpretation, rendering; sameness and
difference.

Definition types: nominal, conceptual, or real; dictionary, explicit, contextual, ostensive,
stipulative, recursive definitions, and redefinition

Meaning change: primary meaning/special senses (radiation); specialization and
generalization; melioration and deterioration and genteelisms and euphemisms;
adulteration; figurative, non-literal extensions or tropes or images or figures, analogy,
simile, metaphor, personification, metonymy, synecdoche, hyperbole or exaggeration,
and extrapolation Class, category or classification or genus, a collection of things having a common property; what is predicated of a number of things showing difference in kinds.

Category hierarchy: group, grouping; collection, aggregation, accumulation; class,
family; kind, sort, form, variety; type, nature, version, or variation; rubric and way
Classification, ordering (grouping, organization, categorization, assortment, sorting, or
distribution) things into groups, categories or classes according to their similarities or
differences

Types of classification: typology, taxonomy, metadata, topic map, ontologies, indexing,
cross-classification, re-classification, stratification, assessment; dichotomy and trichotomy.

Property: an essential attribute common to all members of a class; an attribute predicated convertibly of a thing. If something is a state, then it is capable to change, and if it be capable of alteration, it is a state.

Property types: substantial, absolute, essential or permanent; stative (qualitative or quantitative); functional; and relative (temporary, spatial, etc.)

Proposition: a statement, true or false, that negates or affirms something of something,
whether the two things are the same or different (either identical or contained each within the other as whole and part), or whether the relation of an attribute with a thing is fact or not;

Proposition types: universal, specific and particular; ontological, logical, ethical,
scientific; axiom, premise, postulate, posit or assumption, converse, negation, conclusion,
theorem, corollary, lemma.

Modality (existence, possibility and impossibility, contingency and necessity). Temporality (the present, past, or future)

All propositions should be taken in the most general form, so that to make them into
many specific statements about facts, e.g. ‘the knowledge of relative terms is
complementary’ Principle, a general law, truth or rule basic to specific laws, truths, or rules

Concepts: generality, source, foundation, element, cause, standard, action or operation

Kinds and order: fundamental truths and causes, natural laws, basic elements, moral
standards

Relationships: reality, nature, mind, knowledge, science, morality

Reality: substance, property, quantity, quality, state, change, relation, process, causation

Nature: matter, energy, information, life, organism, mind, society

Mind: sensations, perceptions, ideas, concepts, thoughts

Knowledge: sensations, ideas, definitions, propositions, judgments

Science: axioms, postulates, induction, experience, observations, hypotheses, or
assumptions

Morality: codes, ends, utility, happiness, good Truth, correspondence (conformity) to reality (actuality) or to ideal, pattern, model, standard, and rule

Meanings: being, reality, knowledge, speech, belief, statement; fact, veracity, the true,
verity, accuracy The fact of the thing’s being or not being is the cause of the truth or falsity of the proposition that it is or not

Reasoning: inference or argument, a cognitive operation (mental process) of abstract
(logical) thinking (thought, cerebration, intellection, mentation) involving knowledge;
abstract thinking; the process of thought

Types: analysis or analytic thinking, argumentation or logical argument, conjecture,
deduction, inference, prediction, ratiocination, regress or reasoning backward, synthesis
or synthetic thinking; ontological reasoning, logical reasoning, mathematical reasoning,
scientific reasoning, dialectical reasoning, rhetorical reasoning, and practical reasoning;
animal, human, and machine reasoning

Analysis: breakdown, resolution, cost-benefit analysis, dissection, elimination,
reductionism, systems analysis, trend analysis

Argumentation: line of inquiry (questioning), casuistry, policy (social, economic, fiscal,
control, protectionism, party line, foreign policy)

Conjecture: theorization, abstraction or generalization, supposition or supposal

Deduction: synthesis or syllogism

Inference: illation, analogy, corollary, derivation, entailment or implication, extrapolation,presumption

Prediction: anticipation, projection, prophecy or prognostication, prefiguration
Truth, validity, and consistency: material truth and formal truth; contingency and
necessity, certainty and probability; fallacies, material, verbal, and formal

Correlative processes: mental association, construction, consideration, ideation,
mentation, thread, line of thought, mysticism, intuition, insight, explanation, excogitation,

planning, problem solving, convergent and divergent thinking

Source:Universal Standard Entity Classification System (USECS) 2005