Definition of material in English:

material

noun

mass noun

1The matter from which a thing is or can be made.
‘goats can eat more or less any plant material’
count noun ‘highly flammable materials’
- ‘Many of the males and a few of the females wear stuff that looks like leather, but most is woven animal fur or plant material of kinds I do not know.’
- ‘It is formed from decomposing underground deposits of organic matter such as decaying plant material.’
- ‘Gas cylinders contain flammable material - the fire extinguishers put out fires.’
- ‘The sediment is cemented by material derived from pore waters and grain dissolution.’
- ‘Try to remove all large rocks, pebbles, and plant material from the soil.’
- ‘For the first three harvests, plant material was bulked across three gullies to obtain sufficient plant material for mineral analyses.’
- ‘A wine-like beverage can be made from almost any fruit, berry, or other plant material containing sugar.’
- ‘Previous attempts to break down the plant into reusable material and fertiliser have been defeated because of its high moisture content.’
- ‘Bacteria and insects break down organic material to produce soil and nutrients so plants can grow.’
- ‘This region's ample sunlight breaks down the organic material in sewage into food for plankton.’
- ‘At higher elevations on these mountains, the parent material is acid crystalline rock.’
- ‘The fire spread so quickly, he said, because there was a lot of flammable material inside the building.’
- ‘The relief material includes biscuits, water, candles, matchsticks and bread.’
- ‘Efforts to extinguish the blaze were hampered by the large amount of flammable material inside the building.’
- ‘A virus is a small packet of infectious nucleic acid material surrounded by a protein coat.’
- ‘Gone are the days when wood was the basic material used for boat building.’
- ‘This sculpture was room size and not made of any fine material like marble or wood.’
- ‘That is because mined diamonds are a carbon gem material and synthetic diamonds are polycrystalline.’
- ‘Any samples of hair, blood or other organic material removed from the cars will be matched up against a national database.’
- ‘The officer saw an open-backed truck at the site containing a large amount of asbestos cement roofing material.’
matter, substance, stuff, medium
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1. 1.1materialsThings needed for an activity.
  ‘cleaning materials’
  ‘Any money given to the project will be used toward the purchase of materials for the above activities.’
  ‘Other icons lead to full construction details plus information about materials and tools.’
  ‘Throwing money and materials and implements at the problem is not dealing with the problem.’
  ‘It is important therefore to know how to create effective teaching materials.’
  ‘There is no good scientific evidence that these materials are effective at all.’
  ‘The railway stations revert to older materials and greater personal care is evident.’
  ‘They sat together, looking on a little suspiciously as the tools and materials were gathered together.’
  ‘Many students are unable to get class materials, proper exam booklets or take part in labs.’
  ‘They have potentially fatal deficiencies in the areas of design, equipment and materials.’
  ‘They cut into course tutor time and need costly equipment and materials to make them of value to the young people.’
  ‘The managers made a point of ensuring that materials never touched the ground.’
  ‘This will also include supplying materials and equipment required for all events.’
  ‘So first of all get hold of the right materials and tools for the job in hand.’
  ‘You have to get all the staff, materials and equipment to the right place at the right time.’
  ‘This is the way we get the bulk of the tools and materials we need for projects on the house.’
  ‘He strikingly adapted the quality of painting technique and materials to different budgets.’
  ‘It created a flash flood effect and I was in the middle of rapids containing debris, wood and all matter of building material.’
  ‘Banana juice also can be used for making wine while the banana powder could be a basic starting material for making banana biscuits.’
  ‘He said sugar, cement, timber and building material were some of the marketable goods in the neighboring countries.’
  ‘Jefferson's choice of roofing material was the other matter to be considered.’
  things, items, articles, stuff, necessaries
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2. 1.2with adjective or noun modifier A person of a specified quality or suitability.
  ‘he's not really Olympic material’
  ‘He is not teller material or bank material for that matter, but he sure makes me laugh.’
  things, items, articles, stuff, necessaries
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2Information or ideas for use in creating a book or other work.
‘his colonial experiences gave him material’
- ‘Her spiky style and confident handling of the source material creates a book which is more of a literary event than a quiet read.’
- ‘Singletons might use it as a dating agency, novelists as material for a book, market researchers as the easiest way to corner unsuspecting prey.’
- ‘But, after a considerable amount of said hanging about, he accumulated enough material to write a book.’
- ‘He obviously hoped to repeat his success with another trip, but the second cruise was dogged by bad weather and did not provide enough material for a book.’
- ‘I had been turning this around in my mind for some time, trying to think through just what would make my kids worthy material for a book.’
- ‘Part of their brief was to provide work for an exhibition in November and to provide material for a book published at the same time.’
- ‘The source material was great books, and the host was a famous radio journalist.’
- ‘There, in a nutshell, is the source material for countless books.’
- ‘I am continuing to gather material for the cat book and, in parallel, pulling poems together in one place.’
- ‘She makes no attempt to disguise her material in order to create the illusion of a realistic scene.’
- ‘We found some of the most informative material for this review in grey literature.’
- ‘We are currently researching material for a book.’
- ‘According to an excitable tabloid, he viewed the murder as good material for a future book.’
- ‘And the director made the most of the quality material that had finally landed in his lap.’
information, data, facts, facts and figures, statistics, evidence, subject matter, ideas, details, particulars
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1. 2.1Items, such as songs or jokes, comprising a performer's act.
  ‘a watchable band playing original material’
  ‘The long-player will mix original material with traditional songs and is due out late next month.’
  ‘The seven-piece outfit perform Tex-Mex classics, Spanish songs and original material.’
  ‘The ensemble often draws its material from narrative folk songs.’
  ‘More seriously, it seems that not a few musicians seek out less well-known foreign songs as material for their own albums.’
  ‘His performance will feature both old material and songs from the new album.’
  ‘They gave many performances of original arrangements from his operetta material.’
  ‘The Keighley band will include original material in its set along with new chart covers.’
  ‘No matter how good his material is, the audience wear him down with a mixture of catatonia and contempt.’
  ‘The sound quality is almost always atrocious, but for obsessive fans hungry for material, this matters little.’
  ‘Even considering just her four most recent albums, that's an awful lot of quality material to consider.’
  ‘He has recorded some excellent quality material over the years and is a great admirer of the songs of the late John Denver.’
  ‘How could an entire album worth of quality material be left on the cutting floor?’
  ‘The new material varies in quality, but it is nice to have on this disc.’
  ‘There are originals in there too, and these are not overshadowed by the quality of the interpreted material.’
  ‘They've got good delivery, and the show's writers create solid if unremarkable material.’
  ‘How does she create her material, and what comes first, words or music?’
  ‘The remaining films are in the main from writer-directors who create their own material.’
  ‘It's a tough job to have to sit down and actively think about ways to be funny, and create material for a show.’
  ‘So why aren't more studios willing to take a risk with quality material?’
  ‘Have you expanded your repertoire, and if so will your explorative work with your new kit inform your next material?’
3Cloth or fabric.
‘a piece of dark material’
count noun ‘dress materials’
- ‘She picked out a plain dress of dark green material and a clean loin cloth.’
- ‘He pretended to dust an imaginary piece of lint from the dark material before returning his gaze to the other man.’
- ‘He had a piece of dark material masking his face and was wearing a black, cotton casual jacket.’
- ‘The purple dress of velvet material had fitted her perfectly.’
- ‘Heavy, tight weave fabrics will burn more slowly than loose weave, light fabrics of the same material.’
- ‘Laminating this material to a carrier fabric (a fleece, for example) maximises this efficiency.’
- ‘Multi-hued swathes of dress material and shirting are an added attraction.’
- ‘Insulation is a type of fabric or material in a lining that can protect from either outside heat or cold.’
- ‘This led him to the trade of a florist and later to creation of artificial flowers in satin, velvet, silk and other dress material.’
- ‘I've spent hours going around those fabric shops looking for material.’
- ‘I think that that has come out in the way that you have worked with fabric and material and design.’
- ‘The material of the dress I wore was very unflattering; it bulged and fell flat in all the wrong places.’
- ‘I glanced at Matt in the dim light, noticing how he blended in with the shadows due to the dark material of his clothing.’
- ‘I wiped my right hand repeatedly on the dark gray material of the skirt.’
- ‘He was dressed in black material that reflected some of his light and made him seem even whiter.’
- ‘The year's supply of knitting is over, so now I plan to get some dress material decorated for some of the younger girls.’
- ‘The dress of fine material clung to her curvy figure as if it were part of her skin.’
- ‘The water seeped through the thin material of her dress and made her shiver.’
- ‘I gasped when I saw the material; it was a sheer blue shimmery silk material that felt like water.’
- ‘The clothes, as many of the designers put it, are produced from quality material with close attention to detail.’
fabric, cloth, stuff, textiles
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adjective

1attributive Denoting or consisting of physical objects rather than the mind or spirit.
‘the material world’
- ‘When we turn the page of a book, we're aware of a new yet essentially stable material physical space.’
- ‘In many cases, we look to the exterior values, being physical or of a material nature.’
- ‘It is a human invention or creation not of a physical or material kind but of a purely intellectual and ideational kind.’
- ‘If one doesn't have a political conscience and if one has the material or physical means, it's easy to be egocentric.’
- ‘I am more interested in building relationships with people rather than receiving material items.’
- ‘It would be far better if the discussion of economics took a more rigorous approach to the material world rather than indulging in amateur psychology.’
- ‘They are encouraged to have material goals which require substantial assets - again, so that they will be motivated sellers.’
- ‘It assumes that the virtual is a substitute for the material realm, rather than an adjunct to it.’
- ‘In familiar, romantic fashion, this culture is associated with spiritual rather than with material values.’
- ‘The show was put together rather hastily, in a bid to raise moral and material support for the artist who is ailing.’
- ‘The modern measure of success is material reward rather than the satisfaction of a job well done.’
- ‘He is sadly pedaling a form of escapism that neglects the real material existence.’
- ‘These theories remind us that historical events are experienced by individuals in a material way on real bodies and minds.’
- ‘This partially explains the material dimension of his iconography, rooted in the physical world of nature around him.’
- ‘Descartes believes in a more or less natural form of interaction between immaterial mind and material body.’
- ‘This conception of truth reflected more on the essence rather than the material manifestation of truth.’
- ‘Rather, it is crucial to connect individual states of mind to material circumstances.’
- ‘The problem is rather that his material circumstances are not in his control.’
- ‘The story charts a difference from matter as material to matter as meaning.’
- ‘All mentioned material things like a large salary, a nice house, an SUV, and so on.’
physical, corporeal, tangible, non-spiritual, mundane, worldly, earthly, temporal, concrete, real, solid, substantial, secular, lay
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1. 1.1Concerned with money or possessions rather than the needs of the mind or spirit.
  ‘material living standards have risen’
  ‘Long before Europeans arrived, it has been suggested, Australia was a prosperous land, with a high material standard of living.’
  ‘Despite the billions he pocketed from running his hedge fund, he maintains greater interest in philosophy than matters material.’
  ‘You are generous and proud in family situations especially regarding material and property matters.’
  ‘This symbolises a need our soaring material culture cannot satisfy.’
  ‘Did he want to be with someone who only liked him for material and physical criteria?’
  ‘To achieve this, we will have to put an end to our single minded devotion to material pursuits.’
  ‘Bear in mind that most material invocations for wordly gains will almost inevitably carry some degree of bad luck.’
  ‘By and large, human spiritual welfare is seen as far more important than material welfare right through this period.’
  sensual, carnal, materialistic, corporal, fleshly, physical, bodily
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2. 1.2Concerned with the matter of reasoning, not its form.
  ‘political conflict lacks mathematical or material certitude’
  ‘Synthetic or material a priori truths are not reducible to formal truths.’
2Significant; important.
‘the insects did not do any material damage to the crop’
- ‘We agreed with the firm that in failing to obtain a vet's report, he had breached an important and material condition of the policy.’
- ‘It will give auditors a better understanding of what is of material significance to the banks' regulator.’
- ‘If there's no disputing about taste, there's also no disputing some of the material consequences of taste.’
- ‘A majority of their Lordships treated a material increase in the risk as equivalent to a material contribution to the damage.’
- ‘Relationships ought thus to be preserved or restored and the concept of teamwork realised or saved from material damage.’
- ‘But what is material damage to property, and why should locality be less important in this case?’
- ‘The practices are grounded in a material reality with actual, material consequences.’
- ‘Now, physical prowess is admittedly not a material qualification for public office.’
- ‘If this is so, we may conclude that the material component in the definition of a species is intelligible matter.’
- ‘But are there any material reasons why he shouldn't be permitted to take that trip and find out?’
- ‘It is not an intensely material matter here, but it explains a lot that has happened.’
significant, major, important, of consequence, consequential, momentous
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1. 2.1Law (of evidence or a fact) significant or relevant, especially to the extent of determining a cause or affecting a judgement.
  ‘information that could be material to a murder inquiry’
  ‘The situation in the crisis alters almost by the hour but as at Wednesday morning I will try and give you an update of matters that are material.’
  ‘In this case the following matters are particularly material.’
  ‘The Defendants had a legitimate interest in drawing attention to matters which were material in one or other of these two statutory purposes.’
  ‘It must be proved that the accused was suffering from an abnormality of mind at the material time.’
  ‘One reason to hold material witnesses is that they are considered likely to flee the country.’
  relevant, applicable, pertinent, apposite, germane
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Origin

Late Middle English (in the sense ‘relating to matter’): from late Latin materialis, adjective from Latin materia ‘matter’.

Pronunciation

material

/məˈtɪərɪəl/

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adjective

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