position

English

Etymology

From Middle English posicioun, from Old French posicion, from Latin positio (“a putting, position”), from ponere, past participle positus (“to put, place”); see ponent. Compare apposition, composition, deposition; see pose.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /pəˈzɪʃ.(ə)n/
• (General American) enPR: pə-zĭshʹ(ə)n, IPA^(key): /pəˈzɪʃ.(ə)n/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪʃən
• Hyphenation (UK): po‧si‧tion, pos‧i‧tion, (US): po‧si‧tion

Noun

position (plural positions)

1. A place or location.

   • Place definition

     An area; somewhere within an area.

     1. An open space, particularly a city square, market square, or courtyard.
     2. A street, sometimes but not always surrounding a public place, square, or plaza of the same name. (1 of 25 place definitions)

   • Location definition

     A particular point or place in physical space. (1 of 6 location definitions)
2. A post of employment; a job.

   • Post definition

     A long dowel or plank protruding from the ground; a fencepost; a lightpost. (1 of 10 post definitions)

   • Job definition

     A task. (1 of 10 job definitions)
3. A status or rank.

   Chief of Staff is the second-highest position in the army.

   • Status definition

     A person’s condition, position or standing relative to that of others. (1 of 7 status definitions)

   • Rank definition

     The symbol for rank.
4. An opinion, stand, or stance.

   My position on this issue is unchanged.

   • Opinion definition

     A belief, judgment or perspective that a person has formed, either through objective or subjective reasoning, about a topic, issue, person or thing. (1 of 6 opinion definitions)

   • Stand definition

     To position or be positioned physically:

     1. To support oneself on the feet in an erect position. (1 of 29 stand definitions)

   • Stance definition

     The manner, pose, or posture in which one stands. (1 of 7 stance definitions)
5. A posture.

   Stand in this position, with your arms at your side.

   • Posture definition

     The way a person holds and positions their body. (1 of 4 posture definitions)
6. (figuratively) A situation suitable to perform some action.

   The school is not in a position to provide day-care after 4:00 pm.

   • Situation definition

     The combination of circumstances at a given moment; a state of affairs. (1 of 8 situation definitions)
7. (team sports) A place on the playing field, together with a set of duties, assigned to a player.

   Stop running all over the field and play your position!

   • Playing Field definition

     A field on which a game, especially a ball game, is played. (1 of 2 playing field definitions)

   • Player definition

     One that plays

     1. One who plays any game or sport.
     2. An actor in a dramatic play.
     3. One who plays on a musical instrument.
     4. A gamer; a player of video games or similar.
     5. A gambler.
     6. A mechanism that actuates a player piano or other automatic musical instrument.
     7. An electronic device that plays audio and/or video media. (1 of 12 player definitions)
8. (finance) An amount of securities, commodities, or other financial instruments held by a person, firm, or institution.

   • Finance definition

     The management of money and other assets. (1 of 4 finance definitions)

   • Financial Instrument definition

     Any form of funding medium, mostly those used for borrowing in money markets, including cash instruments and derivative instruments.
9. (finance) A commitment, or a group of commitments, such as options or futures, to buy or sell a given amount of financial instruments, such as securities, currencies or commodities, for a given price.

   • Option definition

     One of a set of choices that can be made. (1 of 3 option definitions)

   • Future definition

     The time ahead; those moments yet to be experienced. (1 of 8 future definitions)

   • Wikipedia definition

     A free-content online encyclopedia founded in 2001, collaboratively developed over the World Wide Web in a number of languages. (1 of 3 Wikipedia definitions)
10. (arithmetic) A method of solving a problem by one or two suppositions; also called the rule of trial and error.

    • Arithmetic definition

      The mathematics of numbers (integers, rational numbers, real numbers, or complex numbers) under the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

    • Supposition definition

      Something that is supposed; an assumption made to account for known facts, conjecture. (1 of 2 supposition definitions)
11. (chess) The full state of a chess game at any given turn.

    • Chess definition

      A board game for two players, each beginning with sixteen chess pieces moving according to fixed rules across a chessboard with the objective to checkmate the opposing king.

Synonyms

• stead

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

References

• position on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Verb

position (third-person singular simple present positions, present participle positioning, simple past and past participle positioned)

1. To put into place.
   • 26 June 2012, Simon Bowers in The Guardian, Tax crackdowns threaten Channel Islands' haven status[1]

     While other small nations with large banking sectors, such as Iceland and Ireland, have been undone by their reckless lending practices, the debt-free Channel Islands have always positioned themselves as dependable repositories of riches.

   • Put definition

     To place something somewhere. (1 of 12 put definitions)

Synonyms

• stell (obsolete)

Translations

Further reading

• position in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• position in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• sopition

Finnish

Noun

position

1. Genitive singular form of positio.

   • Positio definition

     position

French

Etymology

From Old French posicion, borrowed from Latin positiō.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /po.zi.sjɔ̃/

• audio

  (file)

Noun

position f (plural positions)

1. position

   • Position definition

     A place or location. (1 of 11 position definitions)

Derived terms

Further reading

• “position”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Swedish

Pronunciation

• audio

  (file)

Noun

position c

1. a place, a location, a position. A description of where something is located with respect to the surroundings, e.g. the satellites of the GPS system.

   • Located definition

     simple past tense and past participle of locate

   • Satellite definition

     A moon or other smaller body orbiting a larger one. (1 of 6 satellite definitions)

   • Gps definition

     Initialism of Global Positioning System. (the U.S. military-based satellite navigation system)
2. (team sports) a place on the playing field, together with a set of duties, assigned to a player.

Declension

Related terms

• positionera