Adjacent Words

Gravitation definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

GRAVITA'TION, n. The act of tending to the center.
1. The force by which bodies are pressed or drawn, or by which they tend towards the center of the earth or other center, or the effect of that force. Thus the falling of a body to the earth is ascribed to gravitation.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: (physics) the force of attraction between all masses in the universe; especially the attraction of the earth's mass for bodies near its surface; "the more remote the body the less the gravity"; "the gravitation between two bodies is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them"; "gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love"--Albert Einstein [syn: gravity, gravitation, gravitational attraction, gravitational force]
2: movement downward resulting from gravitational attraction; "irrigation by gravitation rather than by pumps" [ant: levitation]
3: a figurative movement toward some attraction; "the gravitation of the middle class to the suburbs"

Merriam Webster's

noun Date: circa 1645 1. a force manifested by acceleration toward each other of two free material particles or bodies or of radiant-energy quanta ; gravity 3a(2) 2. the action or process of gravitating • gravitational adjective • gravitationally adverb • gravitative adjective

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. Physics 1 a force of attraction between any particle of matter in the universe and any other. 2 the effect of this, esp. the falling of bodies to the earth. Etymology: mod.L gravitatio (as GRAVITY)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Gravitation Grav"i*ta"tion, n. [Cf. F. gravitation. See Gravity.] 1. The act of gravitating. 2. (Pysics) That species of attraction or force by which all bodies or particles of matter in the universe tend toward each other; called also attraction of gravitation, universal gravitation, and universal gravity. See Attraction, and Weight. Law of gravitation, that law in accordance with which gravitation acts, namely, that every two bodies or portions of matter in the universe attract each other with a force proportional directly to the quantity of matter they contain, and inversely to the squares of their distances.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

In physics, gravitation is the force which causes objects to be attracted towards each other because they have mass. (TECHNICAL)

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. Gravity, centripetal force, attraction of gravitation.

Moby Thesaurus

G, G suit, adduction, affinity, allurement, apogeotropism, attractance, attraction, attractiveness, attractivity, capillarity, capillary attraction, cascade, cataract, centripetal force, chute, collapse, comedown, crash, debacle, declension, declination, defluxion, descending, descension, descent, down, downbend, downcome, downcurve, downfall, downflow, downgrade, downpour, downrush, downtrend, downturn, downward trend, drag, draw, drop, dropping, fall, falling, geotropism, graviton, gravity, inclination, magnetism, mass, mutual attraction, plummeting, pounce, pull, pulling power, rapids, specific gravity, stoop, swoop, sympathy, traction, tug, waterfall