Objective definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

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American Heritage Dictionary (12)

adjective Of or having to do with a material object.
adjective Having actual existence or reality.
adjective Uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices: an objective critic. See Synonyms at fair¹.

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Century Dictionary (25)

As perceived or thought; intentional; ideal; representative; phenomenal: opposed to subjective or formal—that is, as in its own nature. [This, the original meaning which the Latin word received from Duns Scotus, about 1300, almost the precise contrary of that now most usual, continued the only one till the middle of the seventeenth century, and was the most familiar in English until the latter part of the eighteenth.] Natural phenomena are only natural appearances. They are, therefore such as we see and perceive them. Their real and objective natures are therefore the same. Berkeley. The faculty of the imagination, for example, and its acts were said to have a subjective existence in the mind; while its several images or representations had, qua images or objects of consciousness, only an objective. Again, a material thing, say a horse, qua existing, was said to have a subjective being out of the mind; qua conceived or known, it was said to have an objective being in the mind. Sir W. Hamilton, in Reid's Supplementary Dissertations, note B., § 1. Where or when should we be ever able to search out all the vast treasuries of objective knowledge that layes within the compass of the universe? Sir M. Hale, Orig. of Mankind, p. 156. [By objective knowledge was meant the propositions known, opposed to formal or subjective knowledge, the act or habit of knowing. Such expressions probably led to the change of meaning of the word.]
Pertaining or due to the real object of cognition; real: opposed to subjective (pertaining or due to the subject of cognition, namely, the mind). [This meaning of the word nearly reverses the original usage; yet if such passages as that from Sir M. Hale, above, on the one hand, and that from Watts below, on the other, be compared, the transition will be seen to have been easy. Kant makes the objects of experience to be at once real and phenomenal; and what he generally means by the objective character of a proposition is the force which it derives from the thing itself compelling the mind, after examination, to accept it. But occasionally Kant uses objective to imply a reference to the unknowable thing-in-itself to which the compelling force of phenomena is due.] Objective certainty is when the proposition is certainly true in itself; and subjective when we are certain of the truth of it. The one is in things, the other is in our minds. Watts, Logic, ii. 2. § 8. [Thus, there is an objective certainty in things that any given man will die; and a subjective certainty in his mind of that objective certainty.] Objective means that which belongs to, or proceeds from, the object known, and not from the subject knowing and thus denotes what is real, in opposition to what is ideal — what exists in nature, in contrast to what exists merely in the thought of the individual. Sir W. Hamilton, Metaph., ix. A form of consciousness, which we cannot explain as of natural origin, is necessary to our conceiving an order of nature, an objective world of fact from which illusion may be distinguished. T. H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, § 19. If an exact objective measurement of the physical stimuli is intrinsically difficult, an exact subjective measurement of the sensations themselves is inherently impossible. G. T. Ladd, Physiol. Psychology, p. 361. The number of vibrations is the objective characteristic of that which we perceive subjectively as colour. Lommel, Light (trans.), p. 226.
Substantive; self-existent. [This rather confusing use of the word belongs to writers of strong nominalistic tendencies.] Science … agrees with common sense in demanding a belief in real objective bodies, really known as causes of the various phenomena the laws and interrelations of which it investigates. Mivart, Nature and Thought, p. 89. The only other thing in the physical universe which is conserved in the same sense as matter is conserved, is energy. Hence we naturally consider energy as the other objective reality in the physical universe. Tait, in Encyc. Brit., XV. 747.

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This objective was also known by the Lebanese Maronite Christian leadership, who were in cahoots with Israel. — Higher Criticism
What her objective was and why she was part of it made no sense to me whatsoever, just as much as Jun'ichi's parents. — Anime Nano!
I think I have said a few times our objective is to be at least cash neutral at the current run rate we project in Q4 and beyond. — pfblogs.org: The Ad-Free Personal Finance Blogs Aggregator
The process in which I achieve my objective is also important. — www.hardwarezone.com.sg
Tricap Partners will structure transactions with the objective to maximize returns to its investors, and an essential component of this objective is the appropriate exit strategy for our client companies. — Recently Uploaded Slideshows

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