title

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

• noun An identifying name given to a book, play, film, musical composition, or other work.
• noun A general or descriptive heading, as of a book chapter.
• noun A written work that is published or about to be published.
• noun A division of a legal code, generally consisting of multiple related statutes.
• noun Written material to be read by viewers that is included in a film or television show, typically presenting credits, narration, or dialogue.
• noun A written piece of translated dialogue superimposed at the bottom of the frame during a film; a subtitle.
• noun A formal appellation attached to the name of a person as a sign of office, rank, profession, or hereditary privilege.
• noun A descriptive name; an epithet.
• noun A right or claim, or the basis of a right or claim.
• noun A form of ownership free of valid claims by other parties.
• noun The aggregate evidence that gives rise to a legal right of possession or control.
• noun The instrument, such as a deed, that constitutes this evidence.
• noun Sports & Games A championship.
• noun A source of income or area of work required of a candidate for ordination in the Church of England.
• noun A Roman Catholic church in or near Rome having a cardinal for its nominal head.
• transitive verb To give a name or title to.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To call by a title, or by the title of; entitle; name.
• To give a right to be entitled; bestow or confer the title or designation of.
• noun An inscription placed on or over something to distinguish or specialize it; an affixed individualizing term or phrase.
• noun A prefixed designating word, phrase, or combination of phrases; an initial written or printed designation; the distinguishing name attached to a written production of any kind: as, the title of a book, a chapter or section of a book, etc.; the title of a poem.
• noun Same as title-page, in some technical or occasional uses.
• noun In bookbinding, the panel on the back of which the name of the book is imprinted.
• noun A descriptive caption or heading to a document; the formula by which a legal instrument of any kind is headed: as, the title of an act of Congress or of Parliament; the title of a deed, a writ, or an affidavit.
• noun In some statutes, law-books, and the like, a division or subdivision of the subject, usually a larger division than article or section.
• noun A characterizing term of address; a descriptive name or epithet.
• noun Specifically, a distinguishing appellation belonging to a person by right of rank or endowment, or assigned to him as a mark of respect or courtesy. ; ; ; ; ;
• noun Titular or aristocratic rank; titled nobility or dignity.
• noun A grade or degree of fineness; especially, the number of carats by which the fineness of gold is expressed.
• noun A claim; a right; a designated ground of claim; a conferred or acquired warrant; an attributed privilege or franchise.
• noun An inherent or established right; a fixed franchise; a just or recognized claim.
• noun In law: Ownership: as, the title was not in the husband, but in his wife; her title was subject to encumbrance.
• noun The channel through which an owner has acquired his right; the collection of facts from which, by the operation of law, his right arises: as, an abstract of title sets forth the chain of instruments, etc., by which the owner became owner.
• noun Absolute ownership; the unencumbered fee. In a contract to convey title or to warrant the title, the word is usually understood in this sense, in which it includes the right of property, the right of possession, and actual possession.
• noun The instrument which is evidence of a right; a title-deed.
• noun Hence, a source or evidence of any right or privilege; that which establishes a claim or an attribution: as, Gray's “Elegy” is his chief title to fame; his discharge is his title of exemption.
• noun Eccles.: Originally, a district in the city of Rome with taxable revenue; hence, a district in that city attached to a parish church; a Roman parish church, as distinguished from a basilica or an oratory. The clergy belonging to these churches received the epithet “cardinal,” whence the title cardinal.
• noun A fixed sphere of work and source of income, required as a condition of ordination.
• noun Same as tittle.
• noun Synonyms Designation, etc. See name.

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

• noun An inscription put over or upon anything as a name by which it is known.
• noun The inscription in the beginning of a book, usually containing the subject of the work, the author's and publisher's names, the date, etc.
• noun (Bookbindng) The panel for the name, between the bands of the back of a book.
• noun A section or division of a subject, as of a law, a book, specif. (Roman & Canon Laws), a chapter or division of a law book.
• noun An appellation of dignity, distinction, or preëminence (hereditary or acquired), given to persons, as duke marquis, honorable, esquire, etc.