APPOSITION

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does apposition mean? 

• APPOSITION (noun)
  The noun APPOSITION has 3 senses:

1. a grammatical relation between a word and a noun phrase that follows

2. (biology) growth in the thickness of a cell wall by the deposit of successive layers of material

3. the act of positioning close together (or side by side)

  Familiarity information: APPOSITION used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• APPOSITION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A grammatical relation between a word and a noun phrase that follows

Classified under:

Nouns denoting relations between people or things or ideas

Context example:

'Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer' is an example of apposition

Hypernyms ("apposition" is a kind of...):

limiting; modification; qualifying (the grammatical relation that exists when a word qualifies the meaning of the phrase)

Derivation:

appositional (relating to or being in apposition)

Sense 2

Meaning:

(biology) growth in the thickness of a cell wall by the deposit of successive layers of material

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural processes

Hypernyms ("apposition" is a kind of...):

development; growing; growth; maturation; ontogenesis; ontogeny ((biology) the process of an individual organism growing organically; a purely biological unfolding of events involved in an organism changing gradually from a simple to a more complex level)

Domain category:

biological science; biology (the science that studies living organisms)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The act of positioning close together (or side by side)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

apposition; collocation; juxtaposition

Context example:

it is the result of the juxtaposition of contrasting colors

Hypernyms ("apposition" is a kind of...):

emplacement; locating; location; placement; position; positioning (the act of putting something in a certain place)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "apposition"):

tessellation (the careful juxtaposition of shapes in a pattern)

Derivation:

appose (place side by side or in close proximity)

 Context examples 

These bacteria express proteins on their surfaces that interact with cellular receptors, initiating signaling cascades that result in close apposition of the cellular membrane around the entering bacteria.

(Bacterial Invasion of Epithelial Cell Pathway, NCI Thesaurus/KEGG)

Gap junctions were first described anatomically as regions of close apposition between cells with a narrow (1-2 nm) gap between cell membranes.

(Gap Junction, NCI Thesaurus)

An area of densely packed modified epithelial cells lining the wall of the distal convoluted tubule of the kidney that is adjacent to the afferent arteriole just before it enters the glomerulus and is in direct apposition to the juxtaglomerular cells.

(Macula Densa, NCI Thesaurus)