NICHE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does niche mean? 

• NICHE (noun)
  The noun NICHE has 4 senses:

1. a position particularly well suited to the person who occupies it

2. a small concavity

3. an enclosure that is set back or indented

4. (ecology) the status of an organism within its environment and community (affecting its survival as a species)

  Familiarity information: NICHE used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• NICHE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A position particularly well suited to the person who occupies it

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Context example:

he found his niche in the academic world

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

place; station (proper or designated social situation)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A small concavity

Classified under:

Nouns denoting two and three dimensional shapes

Synonyms:

corner; niche; recess; recession

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

concave shape; concavity; incurvation; incurvature (a shape that curves or bends inward)

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

pharyngeal recess (a small recess in the wall of the pharynx)

Sense 3

Meaning:

An enclosure that is set back or indented

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

niche; recess

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

enclosure (a structure consisting of an area that has been enclosed for some purpose)

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

alcove; bay (a small recess opening off a larger room)

apse; apsis (a domed or vaulted recess or projection on a building especially the east end of a church; usually contains the altar)

cinerarium; columbarium (a niche for a funeral urn containing the ashes of the cremated dead)

fireplace; hearth; open fireplace (an open recess in a wall at the base of a chimney where a fire can be built)

mihrab ((Islam) a niche in the wall of a mosque that indicates the direction of Mecca)

Sense 4

Meaning:

(ecology) the status of an organism within its environment and community (affecting its survival as a species)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

ecological niche; niche

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

condition; status (a state at a particular time)

Domain category:

bionomics; ecology; environmental science (the branch of biology concerned with the relations between organisms and their environment)

 Context examples 

Organisms evolve and "radiate" from an ancestral group, they take on a variety of specialized forms that enable them to live a certain lifestyle or occupy a particular niche.

(Putting the sloth in sloths: Arboreal lifestyle drives slow pace, NSF)

May I live to see that flattened vicious skull in its own niche amid the trophies of the Albany.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

This ensures they have a place in industries that serve niche markets and pay more for raw materials with unusual properties—which is the case with cosmetics and dietary supplements.

(Brazilian researchers identify microalgae that can provide biofuels, Agência Brasil)

They used this climatic information to build an ‘ecological niche model’ to map suitable and unsuitable regions for each bird group.

(Past climate change pushed birds from the northern hemisphere to the tropics, University of Cambridge)

A peep, and then a long stare; and then a departure from my niche and a straying out into the meadow; and a sudden stop full in front of the great mansion, and a protracted, hardy gaze towards it.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

There too was the broad sweep of the river Exe, the old stone well, the canopied niche of the Virgin, and in the centre of all the cluster of white-robed figures who waved their hands to him.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Furthermore, biological characterisation of this material showed that it has the capacity to generate the appropriate niche for growth in a number of chondrocytes, while retaining their characteristics in the long-term culture in the laboratory setting.

(Scientists design a new hydrogel that helps regenerate cartilage, University of Granada)

But, not to detract from a nation, to which, during my life, I shall acknowledge myself extremely obliged, it must be allowed, that whatever this famous tower wants in height, is amply made up in beauty and strength: for the walls are near a hundred feet thick, built of hewn stone, whereof each is about forty feet square, and adorned on all sides with statues of gods and emperors, cut in marble, larger than the life, placed in their several niches.

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

I also became a poet and for one year lived in a paradise of my own creation; I imagined that I also might obtain a niche in the temple where the names of Homer and Shakespeare are consecrated.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

They then projected these ecological niche models onto palaeoclimate reconstructions to map potentially-suitable habitats over millions of years.

(Past climate change pushed birds from the northern hemisphere to the tropics, University of Cambridge)