Definition of "nature"

nature

/ˈneɪ.tʃə/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural natures
1. (uncountable, often capitalized) The way things are, the totality of all things in the physical universe and their order, especially the physical world in contrast to spiritual realms and flora and fauna as distinct from human conventions, art, and technology.
  Quotations
  I oft admireHow Nature, wise and frugal, could commitSuch disproportions.
  1667, John Milton, “Book VIII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […]; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873,
  In the works of nature we find, in many instances, beauty and sublimity involved among circumstances, which are either indifferent, or which obstruct the general effect: and it is only by a train of experiments, that we can separate those circumstances from the rest... Accordingly, the inexperienced artist, when he copies nature, will copy her servilely... and the beauties of his performances will be encumbered with a number of superfluous or disagreeable concomitants. Experience and observation alone can enable him to make this determination: to exhibit the principles of beauty pure and unadulterated, and to form a creation of his own, more faultless, than ever fell under the observation of his senses.
  1808, Dugald Stewart, Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind‎, pages 315–6
  Most persons in striving after effect lose the likeness when they should go together to produce a good effect you must copy Nature: leave Nature for an imaginary effect & you lose all. Nature as Nature cannot be exceeded, and as your object it [is] to copy Nature twere the hight of folly to look at any thing else to produce that copy.
  1816, Matthew Harris Jouett, Notes... on Painting with Gilbert Stuart Esqr
  Nature has caprices which art cannot imitate.
  1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 6, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volumes (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans
  Nothing was more common, in those days, than to interpret all meteoric appearances, and other natural phenomena, that occurred with less regularity than the rise and set of sun and moon, as so many revelations from a supernatural source... But what shall we say, when an individual discovers a revelation, addressed to himself alone, on the same vast sheet of record! In such a case, it could only be the symptom of a highly disordered mental state, when a man, rendered morbidly self-contemplative by long, intense, and secret pain, had extended his egotism over the whole expanse of nature, until the firmament itself should appear no more than a fitting page for his soul's history and fate.
  1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields
  Nature has good intentions, of course, but, as Aristotle once said, she cannot carry them out. When I look at a landscape I cannot help seeing all its defects.
  1891, Oscar Wilde, The Decay of Lying
  Nature’s logic was too horrid for him to care for.
  1895, Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure, page 15
  ...they will shout at you, it is no use protesting: it is a case of twice two makes four! Nature does not ask your permission, she has nothing to do with your wishes, and whether you like her laws or dislike them, you are bound to accept her as she is, and consequently all her conclusions. A wall, you see, is a wall... Merciful Heavens! but what do I care for the laws of nature and arithmetic, when, for some reason I dislike those laws and the fact that twice two makes four? Of course I cannot break through the wall by battering my head against it if I really have not the strength to knock it down, but I am not going to be reconciled to it simply because it is a stone wall and I have not the strength.
  1918, Fyodor Dostoevsky, “Notes from Underground”, in Constance Garnett, transl., White Nights and Other Stories‎, pages 58–9
  Man was entirely at the mercy of nature—a mere scavenger who eked out a miserable existence as a food-gatherer and an eater of shell-fish.
  1928, Christopher Dawson, The Age of the Gods, page 49
  Freamon: She too young for you, boy... They get younger, William. Skinnier too. You don't... 's just the nature of things. Age is age, fat is fat, nature’s nature.Moreland: Pitiful.Freamon: Pitiless. Nature don't care. Nature just is.
  2006 Oct. 1, Dennis Lehane, "Refugees", The Wire, 00:34:06
  As in much of biology, the most satisfying truths in ecology derive from manipulative experimentation. Tinker with nature and quantify how it responds.
  2012 January, Robert M. Pringle, “How to Be Manipulative”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 1, page 31
  Gómez Ortega... explicitly ordered them to study only fresh plants, in situ, to draw every part, and 'to copy nature exactly without presuming to correct it or decorate it as some draughtsmen are used to doing, adding colours and ornaments drawn from their imagination'.
  2015, Alisa Luxenberg, “Printing Plants: The Technology of Nature Printing in Eighteenth-Century Spain”, in Art, Technology, and Nature, page 140
  As Hurricane Irma prepares to strike, it's worth remembering that Mother Nature never intended us to live here.
  2017 Sept. 8, Michael Grunwald, "A Requiem for Florida" in Politico Magazine
  The tao of Lao Tzu was a cosmic tao, inner and unwritten, a tao of Nature, while the tao of Confucius was moral and written.
  2021, Olof G. Lidin, From Taoism to Einstein, page 196
2. The particular way someone or something is, especially
  1. The essential or innate characteristics of a person or thing which will always tend to manifest, especially in contrast to specific contexts, reason, religious duty, upbringing, and personal pretense or effort.
    Quotations
    Vliss.: ... One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,That all with one consent praise new-borne gaudes,Though they are made and moulded of things past,And goe to dust, that is a little guilt,More laud then guilt ore-dusted.
    c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act TROILUS AND CRESSIDA, scene iii], page iii
    Lady...Glamys thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt beWhat thou art promis'd: yet doe I feare thy Nature,It is too full o'th' Milke of humane kindnesse,To catch the neerest way.
    c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene v]
    Nature passes norture.
    1641, David Fergusson, Scottish proverbs, D4
    Men may change their Climate, but they cannot their Nature.
    1709, Robert Steele, Tatler, number 93
    Domestic animals of a base nature and not fit for food, are not the subjects of theft. This rule includes dogs and cats.
    1834, Criminal Law Commission, First Report... on Criminal Law, page 21
    His own better nature which... was magnanimous and heroic, moved and won him.
    1848, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Harold, volume III, page 375
    The Monophysites held that the two Natures were so united, that although the 'One Christ' was partly Human and partly Divine, His two Natures became by their union only one Nature.
    1874, John Henry Blunt, Dictionary of Sects..., page 332
    Mark hardly knew whether to believe this or not. He already began to suspect that Roswell was something of a humbug, and though it was not in his nature to form a causeless dislike, he certainly did not feel disposed to like Roswell.
    1869, Horatio Alger Jr., Mark the Match Boy, Ch. 16
    The phrase ‘nature and nurture’ is a convenient jingle of words, for it separates under two distinct heads the innumerable elements of which personality is composed.
    1874, Francis Galton, English Men of Science, page 12
    Being by nature of a cheerful disposition, the symptom did not surprise his servant, late private of the same famous regiment, who was laying breakfast in an adjoining room.
    1920, Herman Cyril McNeile, chapter 1, in Bulldog Drummond
    The contrast between nature and grace, between human appetites and interests and religion, is not absolute, but relative.
    1926, Richard Henry Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, page 20
    Couples bitching at each other is human nature.
    1961, Barry Crump, Hang on a Minute Mate, page 147
    Freamon: She too young for you, boy... They get younger, William. Skinnier too. You don't... 's just the nature of things. Age is age, fat is fat, nature's nature.Moreland: Pitiful.Freamon: Pitiless. Nature don't care. Nature just is.
    2006 Oct. 1, Dennis Lehane, "Refugees", The Wire, 00:34:06
    Unlike the static conception of nature or nurture, epigenic research demonstrates how genes and environments continuously interact to produce characteristics throughout a lifetime.
    2015 July 10, Evan Nesterak, "The End of Nature versus Nurture" in The Psych Report
  2. The distinguishing characteristic of a person or thing, understood as its general class, sort, type, etc.
    Quotations
    For the French, it was impossible for them to serve her in that nature.
    1626 July 12, Charles I, Instructions
    A dispute of this nature caused mischief.
    1700, [John] Dryden, “Preface”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […]
    Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, of errand not wholly obvious to their fellows, yet of such sort as to call into query alike the nature of their errand and their own relations.
    1910, Emerson Hough, chapter II, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company
    And yet, though you could not actually hear what the man was saying, you could not be in any doubt about its general nature.
    1949, George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, page 56
    The extent and nature of Bach's influence on Haydn is now due for further reassessment.
    1988 April, Music and Letters, Vol. 69, p. 463
  3. (UK military, obsolete) Synonym of caliber: the class of a gun.
    Quotations
    ...One Hundred of each Nature of Case-Shot...
    1828, James Morton Spearman, The British Gunner, page 130
    B.L. cartridges have lubricators choked inside the cartridges of 40-pr. and lower natures.
    1879, War Office, Manual of Siege and Garrison Artillery Exercises, page 37
3. (now dialect) as requiring nourishment or careful maintenance or (medicine) as a force of regeneration without special treatment.
  Quotations
  Any such corrasiue, sharpe or eager medicine... as the said H. shal think his nature is vnable to suffer...
  1592, William West, Symbolaeography, Pt. I, §102b
  For nature creſſant does not grovve alone / In thevvs and bulkes, but as this temple vvaxes, / The invvard ſervice of the minde and ſoule / Grovves vvide vvithal, […]For a human being's vital functions, increasing, do not grow alone / In physical development and bulk, but as this "temple" [i.e., the body] waxes, / The inward operation of the mind and soul / Grows wide with them.
  c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: […] (Second Quarto), London: […] I[ames] R[oberts] for N[icholas] L[ing] […], published 1604, [Act I, scene iii]
  I returned hungry... and had only snow to supply the calls of nature.
  1807, Zebulon Pike, An Account of Expeditions to the Source of the Mississippi..., volume II, page 182
  The timber... is found to be brittle and effete; or, to use the workman's expression, 'its nature is gone'.
  1820, Thomas Tredgold, Elementary Principles of Carpentry, page 165
  Nature is unable to repair the extensive injury.
  1826 April 1, Lancet, p. 32
  The prison allowance will not support nature.
  1843, George Henry Borrow, The Bible in Spain, volume III, page 47
  My iron’s just comin’ to natur’.
  1895, T. Pinnock, Tom Brown's Black Country Annual...
  Hungry-groond, ground credited to be so much enchanted that a person passing over it would faint if they did not use something to support nature.
  1984, William N. Herbert, Sterts & Stobies, page 30
4. A requirement or powerful impulse of the body's physical form, especially
  1. The need to urinate and defecate.
    Quotations
    He withdrew from the Company to ease Nature.
    1701, William Wotton, The History of Rome, page 328
    The women tell you to stop because they's feeling the call of nature. If you don't stop they pee in your lorry.
    1965, Wole Soyinka, Road, page 26
  2. (now chiefly African-American Vernacular) Sexual desire.
    Quotations
    She marvelled "What he saw in such a baby"As that prim, silent, cold Aurora Raby?"...Why Adeline had this slight prejudice...For me appears a question far too nice,Since Adeline was liberal by Nature;But Nature’s Nature, and has more capricesThan I have time, or will to take to pieces...
    1823, Lord Byron, Don Juan, Draft, Canto XV, St. xlix & lii
    He had placed a spell on her by means of a cunjer bag... Its effect was to rob her of connubial allure—in her words, ‘it stole her nature’.
    1941, William Alexander Percy, Lanterns on the Levee, page 305
    Every time I felt nature for her, she would rub something on her hands and face to take away my nature.
    1974 July 25, Daily Telegraph, page 3
    Freamon: She too young for you, boy... They get younger, William. Skinnier too. You don't... 's just the nature of things. Age is age, fat is fat, nature’s nature.Moreland: Pitiful.Freamon: Pitiless. Nature don't care. Nature just is.
    2006 Oct. 1, Dennis Lehane, "Refugees", The Wire, 00:34:06
  3. (now chiefly UK regional and African-American Vernacular) Spontaneous love, affection, or reverence, especially between parent and child.
    Quotations
    Lady... Come you Spirits,That tend on mortall thoughts, vnsex me here,...make thick my blood,Stop vp th'accesse, and passage to Remorse,That no compunctious visitings of NatureShake my fell purpose...
    c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene v]
    Have we not seen (the blood of Laius shed)The murd'ring son ascend his parent's bed,Thro' violated Nature force his way,And stain the sacred womb where once he lay?
    1712, Alexander Pope, “The First Book of Statius's Thebais”, in Miscellaneous Poems and Translations, page 25
    She had no nature, nor indeed any passion but that of money.
    1749, John Cleland, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, volume I, page 136
    ...I could bear much. I'd not move nor screamWhile you wrote the red stripes:But there's no nature in you...
    1937, Robinson Jeffers, “Thurso's Landing”, in Selected Poetry‎, page 312
5. (now rare) A product of the body's physical form, especially semen and vaginal fluids, menstrual fluid, and (obsolete) feces.
  Quotations
  If a man want to break his wife from some man, he steals this dishcloth... an' he ketches her nachure in this dishcloth...
  c. 1938, spell cited in Harry Middleton Hyatt, Hoodoo Conjuration Witchcraft Rootwork, Vol. I, p. 534
6. (now rare) A part of the body's physical form, especially (obsolete) the female genitalia.
  Quotations
  ... offer her the Horse, and... wash her Nature with cold Water ...
  1743 May, William Ellis, Modern Husbandman, No. xiv, p. 137
verb
third-person singular simple present natures, present participle naturing, simple past and past participle natured
1. (obsolete) To endow with natural qualities.

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