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res·o·lu·tion (rĕzə-lshən)
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n.
1. The state or quality of being resolute; firm determination: faced the situation with resolution.
2.
a. A firm decision to do something: made a resolution to get more exercise.
b. A course of action determined or decided on: His resolution is to get up early.
3.
a. The act of solving or explaining a problem or puzzle.
b. The resolving or concluding of a dispute or disagreement.
c. The part of a literary work in which the complications of the plot are resolved or simplified.
4. A formal statement of a decision or expression of opinion put before or adopted by an assembly such as the US Congress.
5. Physics & Chemistry The act or process of separating or reducing something into its constituent parts: the prismatic resolution of sunlight into its spectral colors.
6. The clarity or fineness of detail that can be distinguished in an image, often measured as the number or the density of the discrete units, such as pixels or dots, that compose it.
7. Medicine The subsiding or termination of an abnormal condition, such as a fever or inflammation.
8. Music
a. The progression of a dissonant tone or chord to a consonant tone or chord.
b. The tone or chord to which such a progression is made.
9. The substitution of one metrical unit for another, especially the substitution of two short syllables for one long syllable in quantitative verse.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
 

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

    Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

    Indo-European Roots

    Semitic Roots

    The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.