Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of this kind.
  • adjective Of a kind specified or implied.
  • adjective Of a degree or quality indicated.
  • adjective Of so extreme a degree or quality.
  • adverb To so extreme a degree; so.
  • adverb Very; especially.
  • pronoun Such a person or persons or thing or things.
  • pronoun Itself alone or within itself.
  • pronoun Someone or something implied or indicated.
  • pronoun Similar things or people; the like.
  • idiom (such as) For example.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Of that kind; of the like kind or degree; like; similar.
  • In Middle English such appears in another quasi-adverbial use, preceding a numeral, in the sense of ‘as much,’ or ‘as many’: as, such seven, ‘seven such’—that is, ‘seven times as many.’
  • Such without the correlative clause with as is often used emphatically, noting a high degree or a very good or very bad kind, the correlative clause being either obvious, as, he did not expect to come to such honor (sc. as he attained), or quite lost from view, as, such a time! he is such a liar!
  • The same as previously mentioned or specified; not other or different.
  • Of that class: especially in the phrase as such, ‘in that particular character.’
  • Some; certain: used to indicate or suggest a person or thing originally specified by a name or designation for winch the speaker, for reasons of brevity, of convenience or reserve, or from forgetfulness, prefers to substitute, or must substitute, a general phrase: often repeated, such or such, or such and such (even with a single subject, but in this case implying repetition of action or selection of instances).
  • Such a person or thing; more commonly with a plural reference, such persons or things: by ellipsis of the noun.
  • The same.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Of that kind; of the like kind; like; resembling; similar; ; -- followed by that or as introducing the word or proposition which defines the similarity, or the standard of comparison.
  • adjective Having the particular quality or character specified.
  • adjective The same that; -- with as.
  • adjective Certain; -- representing the object as already particularized in terms which are not mentioned.
  • adjective certain; some; -- used to represent the object indefinitely, as already particularized in one way or another, or as being of one kind or another.
  • adjective of the like kind.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective like this, that, these, those; Used to make a comparison with something implied by context.
  • adjective Used as an intensifier; roughly equivalent to very much of.
  • determiner particularly used in formal documents any
  • pronoun A person, a thing, people, or things like the one or ones already mentioned.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adverb to so extreme a degree
  • adjective of so extreme a degree or extent

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English swylc; see swo- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English such, swuch, swulch, from Old English swylc, swilc, swelc ("such"), from Proto-Germanic *swalīkaz (“so formed, so like”), equivalent to so +‎ -like. Cognate with Scots swilk, sic, sik ("such"), West Frisian suk, sok ("such"), Dutch zulk ("such"), Low German sölk, sulk, suk ("such"), German solch ("such"), Danish slig ("like that, such"), Swedish slik ("such"), Icelandic slíkur ("such"). More at so, like.

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Examples

  • Mainstream Psychology during most of the 20th century did not apply the scientific method! freud theory of personality, behviorism, etc.. are examples of why phsycholgy got such a bad rep in terms of science. such theories, which highly influenced society, were never real scientific theories since they were never based and grounded on scientific research..such as controlled experiments.

    Is psychology a science? josh 2008

  • But to suppose that these lifeless energies, even if possessed of such qualities, could, void of intelligence, produce _such_ effects as _are_ produced in the universe, requires credulity capable of believing anything.

    The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, April, 1880 Various

  • "What must it to say when I have such a fear, _such_ a fear, that I speak not?" asked one of the Parsees.

    Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 Various

  • When they steal, they are careful to do it on such a _small_ scale, or in the taking of _such things_ as will make detection difficult.

    The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 1 of 4 American Anti-Slavery Society

  • 'I can see no reason,' he says, in one passage in particular which I remember word for word, I think, it gives me such pleasure to recall it -- 'I can see no reason for supposing that _some such_ insight would be impossible to the quickened faculties of a higher development.

    Ideala Sarah Grand

  • When they steal, they are careful to do it on such a _small_ scale, or in the taking of _such things_ as will make detection difficult.

    The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus American Anti-Slavery Society

  • When they steal, they are careful to do it on such a _small_ scale, or in the taking of _such things_ as will make detection difficult.

    The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus American Anti-Slavery Society

  • True that there was then no life or spirit in the poetical vocabulary -- true that there was no nature in the delineations of our minor poets; but better far was such language than the slip-slop vulgarities of the present rhymester -- better far that there should be no nature in poetry, than _such_ nature as Mr Patmore has exhibited for the entertainment of his readers.

    Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 Various

  • When they steal, they are careful to do it on such a small scale, or in the taking of _such things_ as will make detection difficult.

    The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus American Anti-Slavery Society

  • Such a gathering together of ham-and-mackerel-fed bipeds, such a lavish display of gold-dust, such troops of happy-looking men bending beneath the delicious weight of butter and potatoes, and, above all, _such_ a smell of fried onions as instantaneously rose upon the fragrant California air and ascended gratefully into the blue California heaven was, I think, never experienced before.

    The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe

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