Definitions

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

  • noun The part of a text or statement that surrounds a particular word or passage and determines its meaning.
  • noun The circumstances in which an event occurs; a setting.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Texture; specifically, the entire text or connected structure of a discourse or writing.
  • noun . Less properly, the parts of a writing or discourse which precede or follow, and are directly connected with, some other part referred to or quoted.
  • Knit or woven together; close; firm.
  • To knit together; connect.

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

  • noun The part or parts of something written or printed, as of Scripture, which precede or follow a text or quoted sentence, or are so intimately associated with it as to throw light upon its meaning.
  • transitive verb obsolete To knit or bind together; to unite closely.
  • adjective obsolete Knit or woven together; close; firm.

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

  • noun The surroundings, circumstances, environment, background or settings that determine, specify, or clarify the meaning of an event or other occurrence.
  • noun linguistics The text in which a word or passage appears and which helps ascertain its meaning.
  • noun archaeology The surroundings and environment in which an artifact is found and which may provide important clues about the artifact's function and/or cultural meaning.
  • noun mycology The trama or flesh of a mushroom.
  • verb obsolete To knit or bind together; to unite closely.

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

  • noun discourse that surrounds a language unit and helps to determine its interpretation
  • noun the set of facts or circumstances that surround a situation or event

Etymologies

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

[Middle English, composition, from Latin contextus, from past participle of contexere, to join together : com-, com- + texere, to weave; see teks- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin contextus.

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Examples

Comments

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  • A square-cut gem design developed in Germany in the early 1980s and patented and trademarked in 1997. It consists of two back-to-back pyramids (an octahedron), forming a square shape when viewed from the top. The cutting process requires a high-quality rough and creates a high amount of waste, adding up to 50% to the cost when compared to a round brilliant cut diamond.

    September 24, 2007

  • What things are taken out of.

    November 10, 2007

  • Can we stick this on a stuffie somewhere?

    November 12, 2007

  • Okay. :-P

    November 14, 2007

  • Also the same as trama: the mass of non-hymenial tissues that composes the mass of a fungal fruiting body.

    December 19, 2011

  • I had never looked up the etymology for this before--I might have guessed something to do with text, but not weaving.

    August 28, 2015