a mechanical device in a camera that controls size of aperture of the lens; "the new cameras adjust the diaphragm automatically"
electro-acoustic transducer that vibrates to receive or produce sound waves
a contraceptive device consisting of a flexible dome-shaped cup made of rubber or plastic; it is filled with spermicide and fitted over the uterine cervix
(anatomy) a muscular partition separating the abdominal and thoracic cavities; functions in respiration
a passage for water (or other fluids) to flow through; "the fields were crossed with irrigation channels"; "gutters carried off the rainwater into a series of channels under the street"
a television station and its programs; "a satellite TV channel"; "surfing through the channels"; "they offer more than one hundred channels"
a path over which electrical signals can pass; "a channel is typically what you rent from a telephone company"
(often plural) a means of communication or access; "it must go through official channels"; "lines of communication were set up between the two firms"
a deep and relatively narrow body of water (as in a river or a harbor or a strait linking two larger bodies) that allows the best passage for vessels; "the ship went aground in the channel"
direct the flow of; "channel information towards a broad audience"
the act of populating (causing to live in a place); "he deplored the population of colonies with convicted criminals"
(statistics) the entire aggregation of items from which samples can be drawn; "it is an estimate of the mean of the population"
a group of organisms of the same species populating a given area; "they hired hunters to keep down the deer population"
the people who inhabit a territory or state; "the population seemed to be well fed and clothed"
the number of inhabitants (either the total number or the number of a particular race or class) in a given place (country or city etc.); "people come and go, but the population of this town has remained approximately constant for the past decade"; "the African-American population of Salt Lake City has been increasing"
any clever maneuver; "he would stoop to any device to win a point"; "it was a great sales gimmick"; "a cheap promotions gimmick for greedy businessmen"
an instrumentality invented for a particular purpose; "the device is small enough to wear on your wrist"; "a device intended to conserve water"
an emblematic design (especially in heraldry); "he was recognized by the device on his shield"
any ornamental pattern or design (as in embroidery)
something in an artistic work designed to achieve a particular effect
a punctuation mark (.) placed at the end of a declarative sentence to indicate a full stop or after abbreviations; "in England they call a period a stop"
the end or completion of something; "death put a period to his endeavors"; "a change soon put a period to my tranquility"
a unit of geological time during which a system of rocks formed; "ganoid fishes swarmed during the earlier geological periods"
one of three periods of play in hockey games
the interval taken to complete one cycle of a regularly repeating phenomenon
a stage in the history of a culture having a definable place in space and time; "a novel from the Victorian period"
an electrical device that provides a path for electrical current to flow
(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
an established itinerary of venues or events that a particular group of people travel to; "she's a familiar name on the club circuit"; "on the lecture circuit"; "the judge makes a circuit of the courts in his district"; "the international tennis circuit"
make a circuit; "They were circuiting about the state"
the property of relative size or extent (whether large or small); "they tried to predict the magnitude of the explosion"; "about the magnitude of a small pea"
relative importance; "a problem of the first magnitude"
a commercially sponsored ad on radio or television
connected with or engaged in or sponsored by or used in commerce or commercial enterprises; "commercial trucker"; "commercial TV"; "commercial diamonds"
of the kind or quality used in commerce; average or inferior; "commercial grade of beef"; "commercial oxalic acid"
of or relating to commercialism; "a commercial attache"; "commercial paper"; "commercial law"
the discipline that studies the principles of transmiting information and the methods by which it is delivered (as print or radio or television etc.); "communications is his major field of study"
a serialized program usually dealing with sentimentalized family matters that is broadcast on radio or television (frequently sponsored by a company advertising soap products)
(biology) the field of science concerned with processes of communication and control (especially the comparison of these processes in biological and artificial systems)