expression

views updated May 14 2018

ex·pres·sion / ikˈspreshən/ • n. 1. the process of making known one's thoughts or feelings: she accepted his expressions of sympathy. ∎  the conveying of opinions publicly without interference by the government: the right to freedom of expression. ∎  the ability to put an emotion into words: envious beyond expression. ∎  a word or phrase, esp. an idiomatic one, used to convey an idea: nowhere is the expression “garbage in, garbage out” any truer. ∎  the conveying of feeling in the face or voice, in a work of art, or in the performance of a piece of music: eyes empty of expression. ∎  Math. a collection of symbols that jointly express a quantity: the expression for the circumference of a circle is 2πr. ∎  Genetics the appearance in a phenotype of a characteristic or effect attributed to a particular gene.2. the production of something, esp. by pressing or squeezing it out: essential oils obtained by distillation or expression.DERIVATIVES: ex·pres·sion·al / ekˈspreshnəl/ adj.ex·pres·sion·less adj.ex·pres·sion·less·ly adv.ex·pres·sion·less·ness n.

expression

views updated May 11 2018

expression. That part of a composer's mus. such as subtle nuances of dynamics which he has no full means of committing to paper and must leave to the artistic perception and insight of the executant. All he can do is to indicate speed and the kind of mood to be expressed by means of conventional mus. terms written on the score. A large part of the cond.'s art is the imparting of expressive qualities to the perf.

expression

views updated Jun 11 2018

expression (iks-presh-ŏn) n.
1. the appearance of the face, reflecting the individual's physical or emotional state.

2. expulsion by pressing or squeezing, as of milk from the breast after pregnancy or the fetus or placenta from the uterus at childbirth.

expression

views updated May 14 2018

expression A component of a programming language that defines the computation of a value, e.g. (–b+sqrt(b∗b–4∗a∗c))/(2∗a)