mag·ni·tude
(măǵnĭ-tōōd́, -tyōōd́)
[Middle English, from Old French, size, from Latin magnitūdō, greatness, size, from magnus, great.]
noun
- Greatness of rank or position: “such duties as were expected of a landowner of his magnitude” (Anthony Powell)
- Greatness in size or extent: The magnitude of the flood was impossible to comprehend.
- Greatness in significance or influence: was shocked by the magnitude of the crisis.
- Astronomy The degree of brightness of a celestial body designated on a numerical scale, on which the brightest star has magnitude −1.4 and the faintest visible star has magnitude 6, with the scale rule such that a decrease of one unit represents an increase in apparent brightness by a factor of 2.512. Also called apparent magnitude
- Mathematics
- A number assigned to a quantity so that it may be compared with other quantities.
- A property that can be described by a real number, such as the volume of a sphere or the length of a vector.
- Geology A measure of the amount of energy released by an earthquake, as indicated on the Richter Scale.
