claim

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To demand, ask for, or take as one's own or one's due: claim a reward; claim one's luggage at the airport carousel.
2. v. To take in a violent manner as if by right: a hurricane that claimed two lives.
3. v. To state to be true, especially when open to question; assert or maintain: claimed he had won the race; a candidate claiming many supporters.
4. v. To deserve or call for; require: problems that claim her attention.
5. n. A demand for something as rightful or due.
6. n. A basis for demanding something; a title or right.
7. n. Something claimed in a formal or legal manner, especially a tract of public land staked out by a miner or homesteader.
8. n. A demand for payment in accordance with an insurance policy or other formal arrangement.
9. n. The sum of money demanded.
10. n. A statement of something as a fact; an assertion of truth: makes no claim to be a cure.
11. idiom. lay claim to To assert one's right to or ownership of.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To call; call out; cry out.
2. To be entitled to a thing; have a right; derive a right; especially, to derive a right by descent.
3. To assert, a claim; put forward a claim.
4. To assert a belief or an opinion; maintain; assert.
5. To proclaim.
6. To call or name.
7. To ask or demand by virtue of a right or asserted right to the possession of the thing demanded, or of authority to demand it; demand as a right or as due; assert a right to: as, to claim obedience or respect; to claim an estate by descent; to claim payment: with from or of before the person on whom the claim is made.
8. To hold or maintain as a fact or as true; assert as a fact, or as one's own belief or opinion: as, I claim that he is right.
9. Synonyms Request, Beg, etc. See ask.
10. n. A cry; a call, as for aid.
11. n. A demand of a right or alleged right; a calling on another for something due or asserted to be due: as, a claim of wages for services.
12. n. A right to claim or demand; a just title to something in one's own possession or in the possession or at the disposal of another.
13. n. The thing claimed or demanded; specifically, a piece of public land which a squatter or settler marks out for himself with the intention of purchasing it when the government offers it for sale: as, he staked out a claim.
14. n. Hence A piece of land obtained in this manner; specifically, in mining, the portion of mineral ground held by an individual or an association in accordance with the local mining-laws of the district. These laws usually require that a certain amount of work be done, or money expended, in order to prevent the claim from being forfeited. Claims may also be made for water-rights, for mining purposes, adjacent to streams. [Cordilleran mining region.]
15. To stick; paste: as, to claim up an advertisement.
16. To clog; overload.

Wiktionary

1. n. A demand of ownership made for something (eg. claim ownership, claim victory).
2. n. A new statement of truth made about something, usually when the statement has yet to be verified.
3. n. A demand of ownership for previously unowned land (eg. in the gold rush, oil rush)
4. n. law A legal demand for compensation or damages.
5. v. To demand ownership of.
6. v. To state a new fact, typically without providing evidence to prove it is true.
7. v. To demand ownership or right to use for land.
8. v. law To demand compensation or damages through the courts.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. To ask for, or seek to obtain, by virtue of authority, right, or supposed right; to challenge as a right; to demand as due.
2. v. obsolete To proclaim.
3. v. obsolete To call or name.
4. v. colloq. To assert; to maintain.
5. v. To be entitled to anything; to deduce a right or title; to have a claim.
6. n. A demand of a right or supposed right; a calling on another for something due or supposed to be due; an assertion of a right or fact.
7. n. A right to claim or demand something; a title to any debt, privilege, or other thing in possession of another; also, a title to anything which another should give or concede to, or confer on, the claimant.
8. n. U.S. & Australia The thing claimed or demanded; that (as land) to which any one intends to establish a right; .
9. n. obsolete A loud call.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. an assertion that something is true or factual
2. n. an informal right to something
3. n. demand for something as rightful or due
4. v. assert or affirm strongly; state to be true or existing
5. n. an established or recognized right
6. v. take as an undesirable consequence of some event or state of affairs
7. v. ask for legally or make a legal claim to, as of debts, for example
8. n. an assertion of a right (as to money or property)
9. n. a demand especially in the phrase
10. v. demand as being one's due or property; assert one's right or title to
11. v. lay claim to; as of an idea