Find - Definition

n 1: a productive insight [syn: discovery, breakthrough,
find]
2: the act of discovering something [syn: discovery, find,
uncovering]
v 1: come upon, as if by accident; meet with; "We find this idea
in Plato"; "I happened upon the most wonderful bakery not
very far from here"; "She chanced upon an interesting book
in the bookstore the other day" [syn: find, happen,
chance, bump, encounter]
2: discover or determine the existence, presence, or fact of;
"She detected high levels of lead in her drinking water"; "We
found traces of lead in the paint" [syn: detect, observe,
find, discover, notice]
3: come upon after searching; find the location of something
that was missed or lost; "Did you find your glasses?"; "I
cannot find my gloves!" [syn: find, regain] [ant: lose]
4: establish after a calculation, investigation, experiment,
survey, or study; "find the product of two numbers"; "The
physicist who found the elusive particle won the Nobel Prize"
[syn: determine, find, find out, ascertain]
5: come to believe on the basis of emotion, intuitions, or
indefinite grounds; "I feel that he doesn't like me"; "I find
him to be obnoxious"; "I found the movie rather entertaining"
[syn: find, feel]
6: perceive or be contemporaneous with; "We found Republicans
winning the offices"; "You'll see a lot of cheating in this
school"; "The 1960's saw the rebellion of the younger
generation against established traditions"; "I want to see
results" [syn: witness, find, see]
7: get something or somebody for a specific purpose; "I found
this gadget that will serve as a bottle opener"; "I got hold
of these tools to fix our plumbing"; "The chairman got hold
of a secretary on Friday night to type the urgent letter"
[syn: line up, get hold, come up, find]
8: make a discovery, make a new finding; "Roentgen discovered
X-rays"; "Physicists believe they found a new elementary
particle" [syn: discover, find]
9: make a discovery; "She found that he had lied to her"; "The
story is false, so far as I can discover" [syn: discover,
find]
10: obtain through effort or management; "She found the time and
energy to take care of her aging parents"; "We found the
money to send our sons to college"
11: decide on and make a declaration about; "find someone
guilty" [syn: rule, find]
12: receive a specified treatment (abstract); "These aspects of
civilization do not find expression or receive an
interpretation"; "His movie received a good review"; "I got
nothing but trouble for my good intentions" [syn: receive,
get, find, obtain, incur]
13: perceive oneself to be in a certain condition or place; "I
found myself in a difficult situation"; "When he woke up, he
found himself in a hospital room"
14: get or find back; recover the use of; "She regained control
of herself"; "She found her voice and replied quickly" [syn:
recover, retrieve, find, regain]
15: succeed in reaching; arrive at; "The arrow found its mark"
16: accept and make use of one's personality, abilities, and
situation; "My son went to Berkeley to find himself" [syn:
find oneself, find]