position

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A place or location.
2. n. The right or appropriate place: The bands are in position for the parade's start.
3. n. A strategic area occupied by members of a force: The troops took up positions along the river.
4. n. The way in which something is placed: the position of the clock's hands.
5. n. The arrangement of body parts; posture: a standing position.
6. n. An advantageous place or location: jockeys maneuvering for position.
7. n. A situation as it relates to the surrounding circumstances: in a position to bargain.
8. n. A point of view or attitude on a certain question: the mayor's position on taxes.
9. n. Social standing or status; rank.
10. n. A post of employment; a job.
11. n. Sports The area for which a particular player is responsible.
12. n. The arrangement of the pieces or cards at any particular time in a game such as chess, checkers, or bridge.
13. n. The act or process of positing.
14. n. A principle or proposition posited.
15. n. A commitment to buy or sell a given amount of securities or commodities.
16. n. The amount of securities or commodities held by a person, firm, or institution.
17. n. The ownership status of a person's or institution's investments.
18. v. To put in place or position.
19. v. To determine the position of; locate.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The aggregate of spatial relations of a body or figure, considered as rigid, to other such bodies or figures; the definition of the place of a thing; situation.
2. n. Hence Status or standing; social rank or condition: as, social position; a man of position.
3. n. The act of positing or asserting; also, the assertion itself; affirmation; principle laid down.
4. n. A place occupied or to be occupied. Milit., the ground occupied by a body of troops preparatory to making or receiving an attack.
5. n. Posture or manner of standing, sitting, or lying; attitude: as, an uneasy position.
6. n. Place; proper or appropriate place: as, his lance was in position; specifically (military), the proper place to make or receive an attack.
7. n. In arithmetic, the act of assuming an approximate value for an unknown quantity, and thence determining that quantity by means of the data of a given question. A value of the unknown quantity is posited or assumed, and then, by means of the given connection between the unknown and a known quantity, from the assumed value of the unknown a value of the known is calculated. A new value of the unknown is then assumed, so as to make the error less. In the rule of simple position, only one assumption is made at the outset, and this is corrected by the rule of three. In the far superior rule of double position, two values are assumed, and the corrected value of the unknown is ascertained by the solution of a linear equation. Also called the rule of supposition, rule of false, and rule of trial and error.
8. n. In logic, the laying down of a proposition, generally an arbitrary supposition; also, the proposition itself. Thus, in the school disputations, the opponent would say: “Pono that a man says that he is lying.” Then this act, as well as the proposition so advanced, is a position.
9. n. In ancient prosody, the situation of a vowel before two or more consonants or a double consonant, tending to retard utterance and consequently to lengthen the syllable; such combination of consonants, or the prosodic effect produced by it. A short vowel so situated is said to be in position, the syllable to be long by position, and the consonants to make position. A mute with succeeding liquid does not always make position, and the situation of a short vowel before such a combination, or the combination itself, is known as weak position.
10. n. In obstetrics, the relation between the body of the fetus and the pelvis of the mother in any given presentation. There are in vertex presentations four positions, named according to the direction of the occiput, which the fetal head may occupy: first or left occipitocotyloid position, in which the occiput points to the left foramen ovale—the most frequent position; second or right occipitocotyloid position, in which the occiput points to the right foramen ovale; third or right sacro-iliac position, in which the occiput points to the right sacro-iliac synchondrosis; fourth or left occipito-sacroiliac position, in which the occiput points to the left sacroiliac synchondrosis. See presentation, 6.
11. n. Thesis, assertion, doctrine.
12. n. Attitude, Pose, etc. See posture.
13. To place with relation to other objects; set in a definite place.
14. n. Specifically, in archery, the attitude or standing of an archer in the act of shooting.

Wiktionary

1. n. A place or location.
2. n. A post of employment; a job.
3. n. A status or rank.
4. n. An opinion, stand, or stance.
5. n. A posture.
6. n. team sports A place on the playing field, together with a set of duties, assigned to a player.
7. n. finance An amount of securities or commodities held by a person, firm, or institution.
8. v. To put into place.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The state of being posited, or placed; the manner in which anything is placed; attitude; condition.
2. n. The spot where a person or thing is placed or takes a place; site; place; station; situation.
3. n. Hence: The ground which any one takes in an argument or controversy; the point of view from which any one proceeds to a discussion; also, a principle laid down as the basis of reasoning; a proposition; a thesis
4. n. Relative place or standing; social or official rank; ; hence, office; post.
5. n. (Arith.) A method of solving a problem by one or two suppositions; -- called also the rule of trial and error.
6. v. rare To indicate the position of; to place.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the appropriate or customary location
2. v. cause to be in an appropriate place, state, or relation
3. n. a point occupied by troops for tactical reasons
4. n. (in team sports) the role assigned to an individual player
5. n. the relative position or standing of things or especially persons in a society
6. n. a condition or position in which you find yourself
7. n. an opinion that is held in opposition to another in an argument or dispute
8. v. put into a certain place or abstract location
9. n. a job in an organization
10. n. the act of putting something in a certain place
11. n. the act of positing; an assumption taken as a postulate or axiom
12. n. the arrangement of the body and its limbs
13. n. a rationalized mental attitude
14. n. a way of regarding situations or topics etc.
15. n. the post or function properly or customarily occupied or served by another
16. n. the spatial property of a place where or way in which something is situated
17. n. the particular portion of space occupied by something
18. n. an item on a list or in a sequence