index

noun

1. 1

   An alphabetical listing of items and their location.

   The index of a book lists words or expressions and the pages of the book upon which they are to be found.

   He isn't able to find the index of the book.

2. 2

   The index finger; the forefinger.

3. 3

   A movable finger on a gauge, scale, etc.

4. 4

   A symbol resembling a pointing hand, used to direct particular attention to a note or paragraph.

5. 5

   That which points out; that which shows, indicates, manifests, or discloses.

   Among the gravity indexes is the severance of diplomatic relations.

   Tastes are the Indexes of the different Qualities of Plants.

6. 6

   A sign; an indication; a token.

   His son's empty guffaws […] struck him with pain as the indices of a weak mind.

   Their use of these words as epithets is an index of an appallingly low level of feminist awareness.

7. 7

   A type of noun where the meaning of the form changes with respect to the context; e.g., 'Today's newspaper' is an indexical form since its referent will differ depending on the context. See also icon and symbol.

8. 8

   A single number calculated from an array of prices or of quantities.

9. 9

   A number representing a property or ratio; a coefficient.

   In other words, we predict that the index for a new pair of materials can be obtained from the indexes of the individual materials, both against air or against vacuum.

10. 10

    A raised suffix indicating a power.

11. 11

    An integer or other key indicating the location of data, e.g. within an array, vector, database table, associative array, or hash table.

12. 12

    A data structure that improves the performance of operations on a table.

13. 13

    The number of cosets that exist.

    The index of 2ℤ in ℤ is 2.

14. 14

    obsoleteA prologue indicating what follows.

    Ay me, what act, that roars so loud and thunders in the index?

verb

1. 1

   To arrange an index for something, especially a long text.

   MySQL does not index short words and common words.

2. 2

   To inventory; to take stock.

3. 3

   To normalise in order to account for inflation; to correct for inflation by linking to a price index in order to maintain real levels.

4. 4

   To measure by an associated value.

   For thousands of years, human progress was indexed to the ease and speed of our mobility: our capacity to walk on two legs, and then to ride on animals, sail on boats, chug across the land and fly through the air, all to procure for ourselves the food and materials we wanted.

5. 5

   To be indexical for (some situation or state of affairs); to indicate.

   For example, the feature I indexes the current speaker in the speech event and you, the current addressee.

6. 6

   To access a value in a data container by an index.

7. 7

   To use a mechanism to move an object to a precise location.

Forms

plural

indexes, indices, index's

past tense

indexed

past participle

indexed

present participle

indexing

third person singular

indexes