closure - Definitions from Dictionary.com

8 results for: closure

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This

clo·sure

Audio Help [kloh-zher] Pronunciation Key noun, verb, -sured, -sur·ing.

–noun

1.	the act of closing; the state of being closed.

2.	a bringing to an end; conclusion.

3.	something that closes or shuts.

4.	closer (def. 2).

5.	an architectural screen or parapet, esp. one standing free between columns or piers.

6.	Phonetics. an occlusion of the vocal tract as an articulatory feature of a particular speech sound. Compare constriction (def. 5).

7.	Parliamentary Procedure. a cloture.

8.	Surveying. completion of a closed traverse in such a way that the point of origin and the endpoint coincide within an acceptably small margin of error. Compare error of closure.

Mathematics.

a.	the property of being closed with respect to a particular operation.

b.	the intersection of all closed sets that contain a given set.

10.

Psychology.

a.	the tendency to see an entire figure even though the picture of it is incomplete, based primarily on the viewer's past experience.

b.	a sense of psychological certainty or completeness: a need for closure.

11.	Obsolete. something that encloses or shuts in; enclosure.

–verb (used with object), verb (used without object)

12.	Parliamentary Procedure. to cloture.

[Origin: 1350–1400; ME < MF < L clausūra. See close, -ure

]

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
closure

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American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

clo·sure Audio Help (klō'zhər) Pronunciation Key
n.

The act of closing or the state of being closed: closure of an incision.
Something that closes or shuts.
1. A bringing to an end; a conclusion: finally brought the project to closure.
2. A feeling of finality or resolution, especially after a traumatic experience.
See cloture.
The property of being mathematically closed.

tr.v. clo·sured, clo·sur·ing, clo·sures
To cloture (a debate).

[Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin clausūra, fortress, lock, from clausus, enclosed; see close. Sense 4, translation of French clôture.]

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The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

clo·ture Audio Help   (klō'chər) Pronunciation Key
n.   A parliamentary procedure by which debate is ended and an immediate vote is taken on the matter under discussion. Also called closure.

tr.v.   clo·tured, clo·tur·ing, clo·tures
To apply cloture to (a parliamentary debate).

[French clôture, from Old French closture, probably alteration of closure, closure; see closure.]

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The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Online Etymology Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
closure

c.1390, from O.Fr. closure "that which encloses," from L. clausura "lock, fortress, a closing," from pp. stem of claudere "to close" (see close (v.)). Originally "a fence," sense of "bringing to a close" is from 1423. Sense of "tendency to create ordered and satisfying wholes" is 1924, from Gestalt psychology.

WordNet - Cite This Source - Share This

closure
noun
1.	approaching a particular destination; a coming closer; a narrowing of a gap; "the ship's rapid rate of closing gave them little time to avoid a collision" [syn: closing]
2.	a rule for limiting or ending debate in a deliberative body
3.	a Gestalt principle of organization holding that there is an innate tendency to perceive incomplete objects as complete and to close or fill gaps and to perceive asymmetric stimuli as symmetric
4.	something settled or resolved; the outcome of decision making; "they finally reached a settlement with the union"; "they never did achieve a final resolution of their differences"; "he needed to grieve before he could achieve a sense of closure" [syn: settlement]
5.	an obstruction in a pipe or tube; "we had to call a plumber to clear out the blockage in the drainpipe" [syn: blockage]
6.	the act of blocking [syn: blockage]
7.	termination of operations; "they regretted the closure of the day care center"
verb
1.	terminate debate by calling for a vote; "debate was closured"; "cloture the discussion"

Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
closure [ˈkləuʒə] noun

an act of closing
Example: the closure of a factory

Arabic:	إغلاق، إقْفال
Chinese (Simplified):	关闭
Chinese (Traditional):	關閉
Czech:	(u)zavření
Danish:	nedlukning
Dutch:	sluiting
Estonian:	sulgemine
Finnish:	sulkeminen
French:	fermeture
German:	die Stillegung
Greek:	(οριστικό) κλείσιμο
Hungarian:	bezárás
Icelandic:	lokun
Indonesian:	penutupan
Italian:	chiusura

Japanese:	閉鎖
Korean:	폐쇄
Latvian:	slēgšana
Lithuanian:	uždarymas
Norwegian:	stenging, lukking
Polish:	zamknięcie
Portuguese (Brazil):	fechamento
Portuguese (Portugal):	encerramento
Romanian:	închidere
Russian:	закрытие
Slovak:	uzavretie
Slovenian:	zaprtje
Spanish:	cierre
Swedish:	stängning
Turkish:	kapa(n)ma

Free On-line Dictionary of Computing - Cite This Source - Share This

closure
1. In a reduction system, a closure is a data structure that holds an expression and an environment of variable bindings in which that expression is to be evaluated. The variables may be local or global. Closures are used to represent unevaluated expressions when implementing functional programming languages with lazy evaluation. In a real implementation, both expression and environment are represented by pointers.
A suspension is a closure which includes a flag to say whether or not it has been evaluated. The term "thunk" has come to be synonymous with "closure" but originated outside functional programming.
2. In domain theory, given a partially ordered set, D and a subset, X of D, the upward closure of X in D is the union over all x in X of the sets of all d in D such that x <= d. Thus the upward closure of X in D contains the elements of X and any greater element of D. A set is "upward closed" if it is the same as its upward closure, i.e. any d greater than an element is also an element. The downward closure (or "left closure") is similar but with d <= x. A downward closed set is one for which any d less than an element is also an element.
("<=" is written in LaTeX as subseteq and the upward closure of X in D is written \uparrow_\D X).
(1994-12-16)