Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Being of a specified position in a numbered series: an ordinal rank of seventh.
- adj. Of or relating to a taxonomic order.
- n. An ordinal number.
- n. Ecclesiastical A book of instructions for daily services.
- n. Ecclesiastical A book of forms for ordination.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Noting position in an order or series: an epithet designating one of that class of numerals which describe an object as occupying a certain place in a series of similar objects; first, second, third, etc., are ordinal numbers.
- In natural history, pertaining to, characteristic of, or designating an order, as of animals, or a family of plants: as, ordinal terms; a group of ordinal value; ordinal distinctions; ordinal rank.
- n. A numeral which designates the place or position of an object in some particular series, as first, second, third, etc.
- n. A body of regulations. Any book registering or regulating order, succession, or usage.
- n. A book containing the orders and constitutions of a religious house or a college.
- n. In England before the Reformation, a book directing in what manner the services for the canonical hours should be said throughout the year; a directory of the daily office: also known as the ordinale, pica, or pie. It contained a calendar, and gave the variations in the choir offices according to the day or season.
- n. In the Anglican Ch. since the Reformation, a book containing the forms for making, ordaining, and consecrating bishops, priests, and deacons; a collection of officers prescribing the form and manner of conferring holy orders. The ordinal was first published in English in 1550, and was slightly changed in 1552 and 1662. Although technically a separate book, it has always since 1552 been bound with the Prayer-book.
Wiktionary
- adj. Of a number, indicating position in a sequence.
- adj. taxonomy Of or relating to the groupings called orders.
- n. An ordinal number such as first, second and third.
- n. A book used in the ordination of Anglican ministers, or in certain Roman Catholic services
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Indicating order or succession; Contrasted to
cardinal . - adj. Of or pertaining to an order.
- n. A word or number denoting order or succession.
- n. (Ch. of Eng.) The book of forms for making, ordaining, and consecrating bishops, priests, and deacons.
- n. (R. C. Ch.) A book containing the rubrics of the Mass.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the number designating place in an ordered sequence
- adj. of or relating to a taxonomic order
- adj. being or denoting a numerical order in a series
Etymologies
- Latin ordinalis, adjective formed from noun ordo, order, + adjective suffix -alis (Wiktionary)
- Middle English ordinel, orderly, regular, from Late Latin ōrdinālis, ordinal, from Latin ōrdō, ōrdin-, order; see ar- in Indo-European roots. N., sense 2, from Middle English, from Medieval Latin ōrdināle, from Late Latin, neuter sing. of ōrdinālis, ordinal. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Consider the confusing legacy of the term ordinal which, while more consistently used then all of the above terms, has the disadvantage that all of them have the potential to be intuitive, something that ordinal will never have going for it.”
“Reinach finds that so-called ordinal numbers are nothing but a shorthand way of referring to the (cardinal) number of terms a certain series contains up to some given term.”
“When an agent's preferences are complete and transitive and satisfy a further continuity condition, then they can be represented by a so-called ordinal utility function.”
“He introduced the notion of ordinal rank for ordinary sets and he noticed that ordinary sets can be arranged in a cumulative hierarchy, indexed by their ranks.”
“Reductive proof theory in this sense has followed two traditions: the first, mainly carried out by proof theorists following Gentzen and Schütte, has pursued a program of what is called ordinal analysis, and is exemplified by Gentzen's first consistency proof of PA by induction up to ε0. ε0 is a certain transfinite (though countable) ordinal, however, “induction up to ε0” in the sense used here is not a genuinely transfinite procedure.”
“Dr Simner explains: "There is one called ordinal-linguistic personification.”
“Miscellaneous inspector text's miscellaneous worksheet formula functions are itST and itCONCATULA. itST returns the English ordinal indicator, also known as the ordinal suffix, of a cardinal number.”
“The ordinal numbers have the following structure: every ordinal number has an immediate successor known as a successor ordinal; and for any infinitely ascending sequence of ordinal numbers, there is a limit ordinal which is greater than all the members of the sequence and which is not the immediate successor of any member of the sequence.”
“If the rankings are reasonably consistent across scientists, then you now have an ordinal scale for communicating confidence in a scientific theory.”
“With an amount figure important professions to opt from (you intend a ordinal digit if you have the treatment pack), you will encounter that you can be meet most anyone you desire to be on the mettlesome World of Warcraft.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘ordinal’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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phrontistery - o
from phrontistery.info
ozostomia, ozoniferous, oxytone, oxytocic, oxyphonia, oxymoron, oxygeusia, oxyblepsia, oxyacanthous, oxter, oxyacaesthesia, owling and 504 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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Reading Materials
Names of printed materials meant to be read - for worship, pleasure, information, recitation; out of curiosity, or, in the case of adverts, to get our attention and sway our spending choices.
lectionary, epistolary, reading-book, novel, Bildungsroman, short story, billboard, advertisement, Sunday comics, obituaries, book of hours, primer and 84 more...
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Order
A list of words descrbing order, sequence, or rank
primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary, quinary, senary, septenary, octonary, nonary, denary, duodenary, last and 2 more...
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This week's words
hand-handled, crouch, hootchy-kootchy, gloriole, glory hole, metempsychosis, doctrinaire, transmigration, celestial, treetop, luxuriant, physic and 102 more...
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Willieb's Words
pusillanimous, exigible, extraneous, contemptible, banal, generic, secular, canard, acerbic, erudite, versus, atheist and 192 more...
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likaluca's Words
recursive, genuflect, libidinous, emote, smote, importune, trill, chillax, overshare, shorn, needle, ego and 162 more...
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fitting words
a list of words from the indo european root ar- and variations : to fit together
ambry, rede, coarctate, anarthrous, artiodactyl, exordium, harmony, army, armoire, arm, armada, armadillo and 349 more...
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English grammar
terms relevant to English grammar
phrase, clause, sentence, complement, modifier, adjunct, specifier, constituent, syntax, bar level, supplement, coordination and 285 more...
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OrbitalCombustion's Words
nepenthe, phrontistery, peregrination, pervicacious, sinistrality, phallogocentric, prolixity, leptokurtic, ineffable, haecceity, lucubration, vicissitudes and 1026 more...
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Punctuation Junction
titlo, apostrophe, tilde, colon, hyphen, umlaut, circumflex, grave, acute, breve, caron, macron and 13 more...
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Math words
tesseract, tetration, quaternion, fractal, isometric, monotonic, differintegral, matrix, inverse, recursion, chaos, tensor and 16 more...
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Words I Once Thought Only Catholics Used
Imagine my surprise when I learned otherwise. :-)
absolution, abstain, adore, advent, amen, anoint, aspiration, atone, canon, cardinal, celibate, circumcision and 50 more...
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