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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. The act of performing or the state of being performed.
  2. n. The act or style of performing a work or role before an audience.
  3. n. The way in which someone or something functions: The pilot rated the airplane's performance in high winds.
  4. n. A presentation, especially a theatrical one, before an audience.
  5. n. Something performed; an accomplishment.
  6. n. Linguistics One's actual use of language in actual situations.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. The act of performing or the condition of being performed; execution or completion of anything; a doing: as, the performance of works or of an undertaking; the performance of duty.
  2. n. That which is performed or accomplished; action; deed; thing done; a piece of work.
  3. n. A musical, dramatic, or other entertainment; the acting of a play, execution of vocal or instrumental music, exhibition of skill, etc., especially at a place of amusement.
  4. n. Synonyms Accomplishment, achievement, consummation. See perform.
  5. n. Exploit, feat.
  6. n. Production.

Wiktionary

  1. n. The act of performing; carrying into execution or action; execution; achievement; accomplishment; representation by action; as, the performance of an undertaking of a duty.
  2. n. That which is performed or accomplished; a thing done or carried through; an achievement; a deed; an act; a feat; especially, an action of an elaborate or public character.
  3. n. A live show or concert.
  4. n. In Computer science: The amount of useful work accomplished by a computer system compared to the time and resources used. Better Performance means more work accomplished in shorter time and/or using less resources

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. The act of performing; the carrying into execution or action; execution; achievement; accomplishment; representation by action.
  2. n. That which is performed or accomplished; a thing done or carried through; an achievement; a deed; an act; a feat; esp., an action of an elaborate or public character.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. the act of presenting a play or a piece of music or other entertainment
  2. n. any recognized accomplishment
  3. n. the act of performing; of doing something successfully; using knowledge as distinguished from merely possessing it
  4. n. a dramatic or musical entertainment
  5. n. process or manner of functioning or operating

Examples

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Comments

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  • chained_bear "'How do you feel?' asked the stage manager.

    I looked at her and tried to concentrate.

    How did I feel? I felt the way I always felt before a performance: like I was about to be executed; like I was a fraud; like I was that infinitely compressed point, just before the big bang."
    —Glenn Kurtz, Practicing: A Musician's Return to Music (New York: Vintage Books, 2007), 95

    I was absolutely struck by how true this statement is. He's described that feeling to a perfect T of being just about to go onstage. Nov 3, 2008

‘performance’ has been looked up 2332 times, added to 13 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 20.