combination

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The act of combining or the state of being combined.
2. n. The result of combining.
3. n. An alliance of persons or parties for a common purpose; an association.
4. n. A sequence of numbers or letters used to open a combination lock.
5. n. Mathematics One or more elements selected from a set without regard to the order of selection.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The act of uniting in a whole, or the state of being so united; a coming together so as to form a group, sum, product, etc.; especially, the union of related parts in a complex whole: as, a combination of wheels and springs in a watch; a combination of ideas; a combination of circumstances.
2. n. The whole or complex thus formed; the product of combining: as, a soft combination of stops in organ-playing.
3. n. Specifically The union or association of two or more persons or parties for the attainment of some common end; a league: as, a political or a criminal combination; success is possible only through combination.
4. n. In chem., chemical union; the production of a chemical compound.
5. n. In mathematics, the union of a number of individuals in different groups, each containing a certain number of the individuals. Thus, the number of combinations of four figures taking two together is six (12, 13, 14, 23, 24, 34).
6. n. At ball-pool, a designed shot by which a cue-ball makes one or more object-balls drive another into a pocket; at ordinary billiards one that similarly effects a carom or pocket.
7. n. In lace-manufacture, a complex arrangement of threads.
8. n. Same as combination-room.
9. n. Same as combination garment.
10. n. Specifically, in organ-playing, whatever stops are drawn for use in a particular piece or passage, or the tonal effect thus produced. The process or art of choosing the stops to be used is registration, but each particular choice is a combination.

Wiktionary

1. n. The act of combining, the state of being combined or the result of combining.
2. n. A sequence of numbers or letters used to open a combination lock.
3. n. One or more elements selected from a set without regard to the order of selection.
4. n. An association or alliance of people for some common purpose.
5. n. A combination shot; a billiard; a shot where the cue ball hits a ball that strikes another ball on the table.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The act or process of combining or uniting persons and things.
2. n. The result of combining or uniting; union of persons or things; esp. a union or alliance of persons or states to effect some purpose; -- usually in a bad sense.
3. n. The act or process of uniting by chemical affinity, by which substances unite with each other in definite proportions by weight to form distinct compounds.
4. n. The different arrangements of a number of objects, as letters, into groups.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the act of arranging elements into specified groups without regard to order
2. n. an alliance of people or corporations or countries for a special purpose (formerly to achieve some antisocial end but now for general political or economic purposes)
3. n. the act of combining things to form a new whole
4. n. a coordinated sequence of chess moves
5. n. a sequence of numbers or letters that opens a combination lock
6. n. a group of people (often temporary) having a common purpose
7. n. a collection of things that have been combined; an assemblage of separate parts or qualities