reading

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The act or activity of one that reads.
2. n. The act or practice of rendering aloud written or printed matter: skilled at forensic reading.
3. n. An official or public recitation of written material: the reading of a will; a reading by the poet of her own works.
4. n. The specific form of particular passage in a text: an unusual reading of the old manuscript.
5. n. The distinctive interpretation of a work of performing art given by the person or persons performing it.
6. n. A personal interpretation or appraisal: He gave us his reading of the situation.
7. n. Written or printed material.
8. n. The information indicated by a gauge or graduated instrument.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The act of interpreting; interpretation; exposition, as of a riddle or dream; interpretation of signs, marks, or the like; a rendering or discovery of what is signified by the state or marking of an instrument, by arbitrary signs of any kind, or by the existing condition or action of anything: as, the readings of a steam-indicator; a correct reading of the sky (as to weather), or of a person's countenance or proceedings.
2. n. The particular interpretation given to a composition of any kind, an event or a series of events, etc.; also, a rendering in speech, act, or performance; delineation; representation.
3. n. The act of perusing that which is written or printed; perusal.
4. n. The utterance or recital of recorded words, either from the record (as a printed page) or from memory; specifically, a public lection or lecture: as, to give readings from the poets, or upon law or philosophy. See read, intransitive verb, 6.
5. n. That which is read or to be read; any written or printed medium of thought or intelligence; recorded matter or material.
6. n. The indication of a graduated instrument: as, the reading of a barometer.
7. n. Textual structure or construction; a form, expression, or collocation in a writing, or in a particular copy or impression of it; a version: as, the various readings of a passage in Shakspere; the reading seems to be corrupt.
8. Inclined to read; having a taste for reading; of a studious disposition: as, a reading community.

Wiktionary

1. v. present participle of read.
2. n. The process of interpreting written language.
3. n. The process of interpreting a symbol, a sign or a measuring device.
4. n. A value indicated by a measuring device.
5. n. A meeting where written material is read aloud.
6. n. An interpretation.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The act of one who reads; perusal; also, printed or written matter to be read.
2. n. Study of books; literary scholarship.
3. n. A lecture or prelection; public recital.
4. n. The way in which anything reads; force of a word or passage presented by a documentary authority; lection; version.
5. n. Cant Manner of reciting, or acting a part, on the stage; way of rendering.
6. n. An observation read from the scale of a graduated instrument.
7. adj. Of or pertaining to the act of reading; used in reading.
8. adj. Addicted to reading.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a public instance of reciting or repeating (from memory) something prepared in advance
2. n. written material intended to be read
3. n. a datum about some physical state that is presented to a user by a meter or similar instrument
4. n. a mental representation of the meaning or significance of something
5. n. the cognitive process of understanding a written linguistic message
6. n. a city on the River Thames in Berkshire in southern England
7. n. a particular interpretation or performance
8. n. the act of measuring with meters or similar instruments