posture

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A position of the body or of body parts: a sitting posture.
2. n. An attitude; a pose: assumed a posture of angry defiance.
3. n. A characteristic way of bearing one's body; carriage: stood with good posture.
4. n. Relative placement or arrangement: the posture of the buildings on the land.
5. n. A stance or disposition with regard to something: "Those bases are essential to our military posture in the Middle East” ( Gerard Smith).
6. n. A frame of mind affecting one's thoughts or behavior; an overall attitude.
7. v. To assume an exaggerated or unnatural pose or mental attitude; attitudinize.
8. v. To assume a pose.
9. v. To put into a specific posture; pose.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Position; situation; condition; state: as, the posture of public affairs.
2. n. The disposition of the several parts of anything with respect to one another, or with respect to a particular purpose; especially, position of the body as a whole, or of its members; attitude; pose.
3. n. Disposition; attitude of mind.
4. n. Synonyms Position, Posture, Attitude, Pose. These words agree in expressing the manner of standing, sitting, lying, etc. The first three may be used in a figurative sense: as, my position on that question is this; his attitude was one of hostility to the measure. Position is the most general word, and is applicable to persons or things. Posture is generally natural, and may be awkward. Attitude is generally studied for the sake of looking graceful; hence it is sometimes affected, the practice of it being then called attitudinizing. An attitude is often taken intentionally for the purpose of imitation or exemplification; generally attitude is more artistic than posture. Posture is generally used of the whole body; attitude has more liberty in referring to the parts of the body, especially the head; but position is more common in such cases. Pose is now confined to artistic positions, taken generally for effect, of part or the whole of a body or representation of a body, as a statue or a picture.
5. To place; set.
6. To place in a particular attitude; dispose for a particular purpose.
7. To dispose the body in a particular posture or attitude; put one's self in an artificial posture; specifically, to contort one's self.
8. To assume an artificial position of the mind or character; change the natural mental attitude; hence, to be affected; display affectation.

Wiktionary

1. n. The way a person holds and positions their body.
2. n. A situation or condition.
3. n. One's attitude or the social or political position one takes towards an issue or another person.
4. n. rare The position of someone or something relative to another; position; situation.
5. v. intransitive to put one's body into a posture or series of postures, especially hoping that one will be noticed and admired
6. v. intransitive to pretend to have an opinion or a conviction

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The position of the body; the situation or disposition of the several parts of the body with respect to each other, or for a particular purpose; especially (Fine Arts), the position of a figure with regard to the several principal members by which action is expressed; attitude.
2. n. obsolete Place; position; situation.
3. n. State or condition, whether of external circumstances, or of internal feeling and will; disposition; mood.
4. v. To place in a particular position or attitude; to dispose the parts of, with reference to a particular purpose
5. v. To assume a particular posture or attitude; to contort the body into artificial attitudes, as an acrobat or contortionist; also, to pose.
6. v. Fig.: To assume a character.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. capability in terms of personnel and materiel that affect the capacity to fight a war
2. n. the arrangement of the body and its limbs
3. v. assume a posture as for artistic purposes
4. n. characteristic way of bearing one's body
5. v. behave affectedly or unnaturally in order to impress others
6. n. a rationalized mental attitude