Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The outer surface of an area or a body.
- noun External appearance or aspect.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A boundary between two bodies; a surface.
- noun In civil law, the right which one person might have over a building or other thing in or upon the surface of the land of another person. Also used for such thing itself, if so united with the land as to form a part of it.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The surface; the exterior part, superficial area, or face of a thing.
- noun Everything on the surface of a piece of ground, or of a building, so closely connected by art or nature as to constitute a part of it, as houses, or other superstructures, fences, trees, vines, etc.
- noun A real right consisting of a grant by a landed proprietor of a piece of ground, bearing a strong resemblance to the long building leases granted by landholders in England, in consideration of a rent, and under reservation of the ownership of the soil.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun geometry A
two-dimensional magnitude that haslength andbreadth ; especially such asurface that forms theboundary of asolid - noun The
area of a two-dimensional surface. - noun The
visible ,external surface of a body - noun The '
surface ' (of somethingimmaterial , esp. of themind orsoul ) - noun law A
building intimately associated with theland on which it is built
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the purely external aspect of a thing; superficial appearance
- noun outer surface of an area or a body
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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Certainly not with a heartfelt froufrou letter (which, on the superficies, is immediately insulting).
Archive 2003-10-01 Dean Francis Alfar 2003
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Certainly not with a heartfelt froufrou letter (which, on the superficies, is immediately insulting).
notes from the peanut gallery Dean Francis Alfar 2003
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We cannot call a man's work superficial when it is the creation of a world; a man cannot be accused of dealing superficially with the world which he himself has created; the superficies is the world.
Ben Jonson Thomas Stearns 1920
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You should have the sugar-box by you, to strew on sugar from time to time, as you eat off the superficies, that is strewed over with sugar.
The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened Kenelm Digby 1634
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The superficies is a limitation of the body. 2, and the limitation of a body is no part of that body. 4, and the limitation of one body is that which begins another. 3, that which is not part of any body is nothing.
The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci — Complete 1452-1519 Leonardo da Vinci 1485
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The superficies is a limitation of the body. 2, and the limitation of a body is no part of that body. 4, and the limitation of one body is that which begins another. 3, that which is not part of any body is nothing.
The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci — Volume 1 1452-1519 Leonardo da Vinci 1485
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Watteau -- Watteau the painter -- not that superficies which is more or less familiar to every hack, be he limner or penman, who dabbles in the eighteenth century.
Since Cézanne Clive Bell 1922
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That the country has the ninth largest superficies in the world one million square miles for a population ranking 62 could have attracted the attention.
Georges Ugeux: Revisiting Kazakhstan: An Economic Approach Beyond Petroleum Georges Ugeux 2010
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That the country has the ninth largest superficies in the world one million square miles for a population ranking 62 could have attracted the attention.
Georges Ugeux: Revisiting Kazakhstan: An Economic Approach Beyond Petroleum Georges Ugeux 2010
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That the country has the ninth largest superficies in the world one million square miles for a population ranking 62 could have attracted the attention.
Georges Ugeux: Revisiting Kazakhstan: An Economic Approach Beyond Petroleum Georges Ugeux 2010
chained_bear commented on the word superficies
"'...consider that these very small, very remote islands do not possess the superficies for anything considerable in the way of flora or fauna peculiar to themselves. Do but think of the shocking paucity of land birds in Tahiti, so very much greater in mass...'"
--Patrick O'Brian, The Nutmeg of Consolation, 234
March 9, 2008