Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A means of approaching, entering, exiting, communicating with, or making use of.
  • noun The ability or right to approach, enter, exit, communicate with, or make use of.
  • noun Public access.
  • noun An increase by addition.
  • noun An outburst or onset.
  • transitive verb To obtain access to, especially by computer.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A coming to; near approach; admittance; admission: as, to gain access to a prince.
  • noun Means of approach or admission; way of entrance or passage to anything: as, the access is through a massive door or a long corridor, or by a neck of land.
  • noun Admission to sexual intercourse.
  • noun Addition; increase; accession.
  • noun The attack or return of a fit or paroxysm of disease, as of a fever; accession.
  • noun The approach of the priest to the altar for the purpose of celebrating the eucharist.
  • noun In canon law, a right to a certain benefice at some future time, now in abeyance through lack of required age or some other conditions: if in abeyance through actual possession of another, it is equivalent to the right of succession. See coadjutor.
  • noun In the Roman Catholic Church, same as accession, 6.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A coming to, or near approach; admittance; admission; accessibility.
  • noun The means, place, or way by which a thing may be approached; passage way.
  • noun Admission to sexual intercourse.
  • noun Increase by something added; addition. [In this sense accession is more generally used.]
  • noun An onset, attack, or fit of disease.
  • noun A Gallicism A paroxysm; a fit of passion; an outburst.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable A way or means of approaching or entering; an entrance; a passage.
  • noun uncountable The act of approaching or entering; an advance.
  • noun uncountable The right or ability of approaching or entering; admittance; admission; accessibility.
  • noun uncountable The quality of being easy to approach or enter.
  • noun uncountable Admission to sexual intercourse.
  • noun countable An increase by addition; accession; as, an access of territory.
  • noun countable An onset, attack, or fit of disease; an ague fit.
  • noun countable An outburst of an emotion; a paroxysm; a fit of passion; as, an access of fury.
  • noun uncountable, law The right of a non-custodial parent to visit their child.
  • noun uncountable, computing The process of locating data in memory.
  • noun uncountable, Internet Connection to or communication with a computer program or to the Internet.
  • verb transitive To gain or obtain access to.
  • verb transitive, computing To have access to (data).

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb obtain or retrieve from a storage device; as of information on a computer
  • verb reach or gain access to
  • noun the right to enter
  • noun a code (a series of characters or digits) that must be entered in some way (typed or dialed or spoken) to get the use of something (a telephone line or a computer or a local area network etc.)
  • noun the act of approaching or entering
  • noun the right to obtain or make use of or take advantage of something (as services or membership)
  • noun a way of entering or leaving
  • noun (computer science) the operation of reading or writing stored information

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English acces, a coming to, from Old French, from Latin accessus, past participle of accēdere, to arrive : ad-, ad- + cēdere, to come; see ked- in Indo-European roots.]

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Examples

  • Slide 15: "iPhone and the changed rules of the game for mobile internet" by Ulrika Steg, Product Manager Consumer markets, TeliaSonera Ulrika presented the impact from the Launch of the iPhone.  28\% more data traffic in their 3G network after 1 week, since 160\% more data traffic  Most iPhone users browse outside their portal (the way it should have been everywhere from day 1 when internet access was possible on a mobile phone!) vs. non-iPhone users  User cost control important  iPhone users feel they have internet in a pocket  80\% of buyers men under age 35 and half live in big cities (I think this also depends on the fact that in big cities you do have 3G coverage, I know a friend of mine living out in the country in northern Sweden and as he put it, \ "you have to climb up in a f\%\%\%ing tree to get phone access\") The good thing about the iPhone launch, it forced the mobile operators to start thinking about how to offer value priced \ "flat-fee like\" data plans.

    Recently Uploaded Slideshows 2008

  • This year's capital investment continues TELUS 'longstanding commitment to providing Albertans with access to some of the world's best telecommunications technology, including the fastest and biggest wireless network that Albertans can access*. "

    Profectio Dave Forde 2010

  • *The term access capitalist was first used in a 1993 New Republic piece by Michael Lewis that was one of the first serious critiques of Carlyle.

    House of Bush, House of Saud Craig Unger 2004

  • *The term access capitalist was first used in a 1993 New Republic piece by Michael Lewis that was one of the first serious critiques of Carlyle.

    House of Bush, House of Saud Craig Unger 2004

  • Quoth I, ‘I will start and go to my house at once and suffer hard things for thy sake and contrive how thou mayst win access to him, for such access is difficult at this present.’

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • An access control technology that times out a lawfully made copy so that the lawful owner or lawful renter of that copy has to pay the copyright holder to gain access is the same as a technology allowing copyright holders to charge a toll to cross the Brooklyn Bridge.

    Boing Boing: January 12, 2003 - January 18, 2003 Archives 2003

  • The "Big D" boasts the sweep and size of a blue-ribbon Western river, but walk-in access is limited-better to explore it by drift boat.

    CATSKILLS: Trout Capital 1999

  • You can access the forums at one of two URLs: www. mexconnect.com/forums - in this case, you will NOT have the jump to first unread post feature - this access is the one that will now be used by google and other search engines to have information from the forums reflectedin their search results.

    jump to first unread post 2009

  • You can access the forums at one of two URLs: www. mexconnect.com/forums - in this case, you will NOT have the jump to first unread post feature - this access is the one that will now be used by google and other search engines to have information from the forums reflectedin their search results.

    jump to first unread post 2009

  • Your article uses the word "access" three times to describe a woman's right to birth control.

    Obama Move Not Much of a Retreat 2012

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