a party of friends assembled to present gifts (usually of a specified kind) to a person; "her friends organized a baby shower for her when she was expecting"
a large gathering of people of a particular type; "he was surrounded by a bevy of beauties in bathing attire"; "a bevy of young beach boys swarmed around him"
a vaguely specified social event; "the party was quite an affair"; "an occasion arranged to honor the president"; "a seemingly endless round of social functions"
all of the living human inhabitants of the earth; "all the world loves a lover"; "she always used `humankind' because `mankind' seemed to slight the women"
all of the identical copies of something offered to the public at the same time; "the first edition appeared in 1920"; "it was too late for the morning edition"; "they issued a limited edition of Bach recordings"
people who are believed to belong to the same genetic stock; "some biologists doubt that there are important genetic differences between races of human beings"
(ecology) a group of organisms (plants and animals) that live together in a certain geographical region and constitute a community with a few dominant species
(law) a judicial division of a state or the United States (so-called because originally judges traveled and held court in different locations); one of the twelve groups of states in the United States that is covered by a particular circuit court of appeals
a group of independent but interrelated elements comprising a unified whole; "a vast system of production and distribution and consumption keep the country going"
a group of postage stamps having a common theme or a group of coins or currency selected as a group for study or collection; "the Post Office issued a series commemorating famous American entertainers"; "his coin collection included the complete series of Indian-head pennies"
any of five related nonmetallic elements (fluorine or chlorine or bromine or iodine or astatine) that are all monovalent and readily form negative ions
an accumulation of jobs not done or materials not processed that are yet to be dealt with (especially unfilled customer orders for products or services)
everything that is included in a collection and that is held or included in something; "he emptied the contents of his pockets"; "the two groups were similar in content"
an assemblage of people or animals or things collected together; "a congregation of children pleaded for his autograph"; "a great congregation of birds flew over"
a badly assembled collection of parts hastily assembled to serve some particular purpose (often used to refer to computing systems or software that has been badly put together)
a collection of rules and procedures and conventions that define accepted accounting practice; includes broad guidelines as well as detailed procedures
(astronomy) a hypothetical huge collection of comets orbiting the sun far beyond the orbit of Pluto; perturbations (as by other stars) can upset a comet's orbit and may send it tumbling toward the sun
(astronomy) a collection of star systems; any of the billions of systems each having many stars and nebulae and dust; "`extragalactic nebula' is a former name for `galaxy'"
the entire range of skills or aptitudes or devices used in a particular field or occupation; "the repertory of the supposed feats of mesmerism"; "has a large repertory of dialects and characters"
a collection containing a variety of sorts of things; "a great assortment of cars was on display"; "he had a variety of disorders"; "a veritable smorgasbord of religions"
the collection of rules imposed by authority; "civilization presupposes respect for the law"; "the great problem for jurisprudence to allow freedom while enforcing order"
any particular collection of letters or packages that is delivered; "your mail is on the table"; "is there any post for me?"; "she was opening her post"
any collection of valuables that is discovered; "her book was a treasure trove of new ideas"; "mother's attic was a treasure trove when we were looking for antiques"
a collection of small fragments considered as a whole; "Berlin was bombed to smithereens"; "his hopes were dashed to smithereens"; "I wanted to smash him to smithereens"; "the toilet bowl ws blown to smithereens"
a collection of 13 ancient papyrus codices translated from Greek into Coptic that were discovered by farmers near the town of Nag Hammadi in 1945; the codices contain 45 distinct works including the chief sources of firsthand knowledge of Gnosticism
(New Testament) the sages who visited Jesus and Mary and Joseph shortly after Jesus was born; the Gospel According to Matthew says they were guided by a star and brought gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh; because there were three gifts it is usually assumed that there were three of them
(Christianity) an assembly of theologians and bishops and other representatives of different churches or dioceses that is convened to regulate matters of discipline or doctrine