preparation

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The act or process of preparing.
2. n. The state of having been made ready beforehand; readiness.
3. n. A preliminary measure that serves to make ready for something. Often used in the plural: preparations for the wedding.
4. n. A substance, such as a medicine, prepared for a particular purpose.
5. n. Music The anticipation of a dissonant tone by means of its introduction as a consonant tone in the preceding chord.
6. n. Music The dissonant tone so anticipated.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The act of preparing or making ready; qualification for a particular use, service, or application; adaptation to an end; training; equipment.
2. n. Formation; composition; manufacture: as, the preparation of gunpowder; the preparation of glycerin.
3. n. A measure or means taken beforehand to secure a certain result; a preparatory proceeding or circumstance.
4. n. The state of being prepared or in readiness; preparedness.
5. n. That which is equipped or fitted out.
6. n. That which results from mental or moral training; qualification; accomplishment.
7. n. That which is prepared, manufactured, or compounded: as, a chemical preparation; a preparation of oil and wax.
8. n. In anatomy, an animal body or any part of it prepared for anatomical purposes, or preserved to display parts already dissected. Preparations are roughly divided into dry and wet. A wet preparation is immersed in a preservative fluid, usually alcohol, often glycerin, sometimes chlorid of zinc. Dry preparations are of more varied character: a skeleton is a familiar example. Microscopic preparations are usually thin slices or sections permanently mounted on slides. All preparations are specimens, but a specimen may be a natural object upon which no work has been done, while preparation implies some special steps taken for display or preservation, or both. Models in wax and papier-maché are often called preparations.
9. n. In counterpoint and strict musical composition generally: that treatment of the voice-parts whereby a dissonance in any chord is introduced as a consonance in the preceding chord, and simply held over into the dissonant chord by its own voice-part, while the others move;
10. n. a consonant tone in any voice-part which is thus about to become a dissonance. In early counterpoint no dissonances were permitted; later, they were admitted as suspensions (see suspension)—that is, consonances held over into chords with which they are at first dissonant; next, they were allowed whenever thus prepared or foreshadowed, whether resolved as suspensions or not. In free writing, dissonances are often abruptly introduced without previous sounding. Preparation is opposed to percussion, which is the actual sounding of the dissonance as such, and to resolution, which is the final merging of the dissonance into a consonant chord.
11. n. The day before the sabbath or any other Jewish feast-day. Also called day of the preparation (Mat. xxvii. 62). Compare parasceve.
12. n. Eccles., devotions or prayers used by the celebrant or officiant, assistants, choristers, etc., before the eucharistic or other offices.

Wiktionary

1. n. uncountable The act of preparing or getting ready.
2. n. That which is prepared.
3. n. countable A substance, especially a remedy, that is prepared.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The act of preparing or fitting beforehand for a particular purpose, use, service, or condition; previous arrangement or adaptation; a making ready
2. n. The state of being prepared or made ready; preparedness; readiness; fitness.
3. n. That which makes ready, prepares the way, or introduces; a preparatory act or measure.
4. n. That which is prepared, made, or compounded by a certain process or for a particular purpose; a combination. Specifically: (a) Any medicinal substance fitted for use. (b) Anything treated for preservation or examination as a specimen. (c) Something prepared for use in cookery.
5. n. obsolete An army or fleet.
6. n. (Mus.) The holding over of a note from one chord into the next chord, where it forms a temporary discord, until resolved in the chord that follows; the anticipation of a discordant note in the preceding concord, so that the ear is prepared for the shock. See Suspension.
7. n. obsolete Accomplishment; qualification.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the cognitive process of thinking about what you will do in the event of something happening
2. n. the act of preparing something (as food) by the application of heat
3. n. preparatory school work done outside school (especially at home)
4. n. activity leading to skilled behavior
5. n. a substance prepared according to a formula
6. n. the activity of putting or setting in order in advance of some act or purpose
7. n. the state of having been made ready or prepared for use or action (especially military action)
8. n. (music) a note that produces a dissonant chord is first heard in a consonant chord