Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A development or consequence growing out of and sometimes complicating a problem, plan, or statement: the ramifications of a court decision.
- n. The act or process of branching out or dividing into branches.
- n. A subordinate part extending from a main body; a branch.
- n. An arrangement of branches or branching parts.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The act or process of ramifying, or the state of being ramified; a branching out; division into branches, or into divergent lines, courses, or parts, as of trees or plants, blood-vessels, a mountain-chain, a topic or subject, etc.
- n. The manner or result of ramifying or branching; that which is ramified or divided into branches; a set of branches: as, the ramification of a coral; the ramifications of an artery or a nerve; the ramifications of the capillaries, or of nerves in an insect's wing. See cuts under Dendrocæla and embryology
- n. In botany, the branching, or the manner of branching, of stems and roots.
- n. One of the branches or divergent lines or parts into which anything is divided; a division or subdivision springing or derived from a main stem or source: as, the ramifications of a conspiracy; to pursue a subjeet in all its ramifications.
- n. The production of figures resembling branches.
Wiktionary
- n. botany, anatomy A branching-out, the act or result of developing branches; specifically the divergence of the stem and limbs of a plant into smaller ones, or of similar developments in blood vessels, anatomical structures etc.
- n. An offshoot of a decision, fact etc.; a consequence or implication, especially one which complicates a situation.
- n. mathematics An arrangement of branches.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The process of branching, or the development of branches or offshoots from a stem; also, the mode of their arrangement.
- n. A small branch or offshoot proceeding from a main stock or channel.
- n. A division into principal and subordinate classes, heads, or departments; also, one of the subordinate parts.
- n. The production of branchlike figures.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a development that complicates a situation
- n. the act of branching out or dividing into branches
- n. an arrangement of branching parts
- n. a part of a forked or branching shape
Etymologies
- From Middle French ramification, or its source, the participle stem of Latin ramificare. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“And at least for now, the ramification is that they will never get to read the entire book.”
“One such ramification is the importation of “books” per se.”
On the Great Book Blockade of 2009 (Updated 7 May) (with BDAP Paper) « BAHAY TALINHAGA
“Moralists who find acknowledging or exploiting racism under any circumstances unpalatable should consider the long-term ramification of Obama's election on American political inclusiveness.”
“I also realize that the word ramification is a big "funny" sounding word, with a particularly exciting appeal, for some reason, but I use it only in the most heterosexual concerned Christian American appeal kind of way.”
“I've already put forward proposals for infrastructure, which I think can have a huge long-term ramification -- putting people back to work right now, doing the work that America needs done, laying the foundation for long-term competitiveness.”
“The Golden State upset was exciting, but its major ramification is that we had one team in the conference finals who just simply isn’t up to the caliber of that competition.”
“The ramification is the total disappearance of manufacturing jobs in America and the declining working class and rising unemployment in the Rust belt and other manufacturing towns in America.”
“He also proves some new or less-known results (reflection theorem, structure of the abelian closure of a number field) and lays emphasis on the invariant T_p, of abelian p-ramification, which is related to important Galois cohomology properties and p-adic conjectures.”
“And I think any actor will tell you, anybody in the public eye, that the tabloids are the worst kind of ramification of being a celebrity.”
“If a small positive ball be throwing off brushes with ramifications ten inches long, how can the ball affect that part of a ramification which is five inches from it?”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘ramification’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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GRE Barron's 800
abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abject, abjure, abscission, abscond, abstemious, abstinence, abysmal, accretion and 787 more...
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New words
new words or spelling issues
voluble, Metagrobolize, salubrious, calumny, fugacity, withdrawal, bourse, hypertrophy, leitmotif, argot, improvident, damask and 238 more...
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POL - scandalous (words and collocati...
Words and collocations associated with political scandal
blow the whistle, boo, cronyism and rigging, democratic deficit, denigrate, dirty linen, fiasco, finger pointing a..., graft, hidden account, hush money, illicit financing... and 578 more...
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2nd part
prelude, ample, escalate, prototype, accession, acquisition, archives, zealot, indict, verdict, intimidating, timid and 454 more...
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And the Bog Down in the Valley-O
Tree-ish words.
ramification, dendritic, shoe tree, dendrochronology, xylophone, Pennsylvania, syntax tree, factor tree, square root, peppermint bark, table leaf, twiggy and 2 more...
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vocab 3
predilection, vagrant, stint, insinuate, incendiary, heedless, nonchalant, writhe, queasy, incandescest, hauteur, castigate and 24 more...
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I do not like them, Sam I Am
Words that, for various reasons, I wish we could do without.
copacetic, gamut, horehound, lewd, membrane, metrics, mucous, mucus, negligee, nostril, odious, odor and 143 more...
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My preparation
for GRE ofcourse
exonerate, incipient, disparate, morbid, engross, ebullient, predilection, propensity, allure, qualms, chastise, perpetuate and 111 more...
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nominative case collection
wine stopper, pyre, roster, hamper, moleskin, elastic, pinnacle, facsimile, nook, plonk, contortionist, dismay and 342 more...
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The New Yorker
prejudice, ignominious, quintessence, disparity, vanguard, repudiated, eclectic, dredge, taxonomy, pugnacious, surreptitiously, pudgy and 113 more...
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newGRE
mostly from magoosh
imbue, verge on, nonchalant, deliberate, timorous, futile, provisional, dissect, checked, tinged, alluring, visionary and 1046 more...
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Daily
Daily Vocab List
lull, pious, lurid, objurgate, insurgent, lewd, patio, onus, lampoon, geisha, larceny, maim and 206 more...
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SAT PSAT ALPHABETICAL R
rabid, raconteur, rail, rambunctious, ramification, rampant, rancor, rancorous, range, rankle, ransack, rapacious and 112 more...
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List of words to expand my vocabulary
does what it says on the tin, and is severely needed.
indolent, insolent, idly, divulge, tattle, benign, roguish, daintily, idle, dowdy, sordid, wanton and 242 more...
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Reading Random
Got unknown words randomly
delinquency, modicum, dissuade, incendiary, destitute, lachrymose, plight, ruse, empirical, pedantic, demography, giggle and 444 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for ramification.
bilby This word makes me feel sheepish. Aug 19, 2010