DETERMINATE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does determinate mean? 

• DETERMINATE (adjective)
  The adjective DETERMINATE has 3 senses:

1. precisely determined or limited or defined; especially fixed by rule or by a specific and constant cause

2. not continuing to grow indefinitely at the apex

3. supplying or being a final or conclusive settlement

  Familiarity information: DETERMINATE used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DETERMINATE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Precisely determined or limited or defined; especially fixed by rule or by a specific and constant cause

Context example:

determinate variations in animals

Similar:

fixed ((of a number) having a fixed and unchanging value)

Antonym:

indeterminate (not precisely determined or established; not fixed or known in advance)

Derivation:

determinateness (the quality of being predictable with great confidence)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Not continuing to grow indefinitely at the apex

Context example:

determinate growth

Similar:

cymose (having a usually flat-topped flower cluster in which the main and branch stems each end in a flower that opens before those below it or to its side)

Domain category:

botany; phytology (the branch of biology that studies plants)

Antonym:

indeterminate (having a capacity for continuing to grow at the apex)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Supplying or being a final or conclusive settlement

Synonyms:

definitive; determinate

Context example:

a determinate answer to the problem

Similar:

conclusive (forming an end or termination; especially putting an end to doubt or question)

Derivation:

determinateness (the quality of being predictable with great confidence)

 Context examples 

A rabbit that is derived from a cross between two different New Zealand strains of determinate or indeterminate coat genotype.

(New Zealand Hybrid Rabbit, NCI Thesaurus)

Some time after, asking a friend at court how they came to fix on that determinate number, he told me that his majesty’s mathematicians, having taken the height of my body by the help of a quadrant, and finding it to exceed theirs in the proportion of twelve to one, they concluded from the similarity of their bodies, that mine must contain at least 1724 of theirs, and consequently would require as much food as was necessary to support that number of Lilliputians.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Amid the cares and the complacency which his own children suggested, Sir Thomas did not forget to do what he could for the children of Mrs. Price: he assisted her liberally in the education and disposal of her sons as they became old enough for a determinate pursuit; and Fanny, though almost totally separated from her family, was sensible of the truest satisfaction in hearing of any kindness towards them, or of anything at all promising in their situation or conduct.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

On HER measures depended those of her two friends; Mrs. Jennings could not quit Cleveland during the Dashwoods' stay; and Colonel Brandon was soon brought, by their united request, to consider his own abode there as equally determinate, if not equally indispensable.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

His excellency, having mounted on the small of my right leg, advanced forwards up to my face, with about a dozen of his retinue; and producing his credentials under the signet royal, which he applied close to my eyes, spoke about ten minutes without any signs of anger, but with a kind of determinate resolution, often pointing forwards, which, as I afterwards found, was towards the capital city, about half a mile distant; whither it was agreed by his majesty in council that I must be conveyed.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)