Definitions

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

  • intransitive verb To make a reply; answer.
  • intransitive verb To act in return or in answer: synonym: answer.
  • intransitive verb To react positively or favorably.
  • intransitive verb To give as a reply; answer.
  • noun A pilaster or half-pier engaged to a wall and carrying one end of an arch or groin, often at the end of an arcade.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To make answer; give a reply in words; specifically, to make a liturgical response.
  • To answer or reply in any way; exhibit some action or effect in return to a force or stimulus.
  • To correspond; suit.
  • To be answerable; be liable to make payment: as, the defendant is held to respond in damages.
  • To answer to; correspond to.
  • To answer; satisfy, as by payment: as, the prisoner was held to respond the judgment of the court.
  • noun An answer; a response.
  • noun In liturgics: A versicle or short anthem chanted at intervals during the reading of a lection.
  • noun A response.
  • noun In architecture, a half-pillar, pilaster. or any corresponding device engaged in a wall to receive the impost of an arch.
  • In biology, to react under a stimulus in such a way as to prepare for or escape from an event of which, in course of nature, the stimulus is the sign, signal, or constant antecedent; answer back to a stimulus by an action that commends itself to the human observer as prudent and judicious. See response, 3.

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

  • transitive verb To answer; to reply.
  • transitive verb rare To suit or accord with; to correspond to.
  • noun rare An answer; a response.
  • noun (Eccl.) A short anthem sung at intervals during the reading of a chapter.
  • noun (Arch.) A half pier or pillar attached to a wall to support an arch.
  • intransitive verb To say somethin in return; to answer; to reply.
  • intransitive verb To show some effect in return to a force; to act in response; to accord; to correspond; to suit.
  • intransitive verb U.S. To render satisfaction; to be answerable.

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

  • verb transitive, intransitive To say something in return; to answer; to reply.
  • verb intransitive To act in return; to exhibit some action or effect in return to a force or stimulus; to do something in response; to accord.
  • verb intransitive To correspond; to suit.
  • verb transitive To satisfy; to answer.
  • noun A response.
  • noun A versicle or short anthem chanted at intervals during the reading of a lection.
  • noun architecture A half-pillar, pilaster, or any corresponding device engaged in a wall to receive the impost of an arch.

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

  • verb react verbally
  • verb respond favorably or as hoped
  • verb show a response or a reaction to something

Etymologies

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

[Middle English responden, from Old French respondre, from Latin respondēre : re-, re- + spondēre, to promise; see spend- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old French respondre (Modern répondre), from Latin respondeō.

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