knowledge communicated or received concerning a particular fact or circumstance; news: information concerning a crime.
2.
knowledge gained through study, communication, research, instruction, etc.; factual data: His wealth of general information is amazing.
3.
the act or fact of informing.
4.
an office, station, service, or employee whose function is to provide information to the public: The ticket seller said to ask information for a timetable.
an official criminal charge presented, usually by the prosecuting officers of the state, without the interposition of a grand jury.
b.
a criminal charge, made by a public official under oath before a magistrate, of an offense punishable summarily.
c.
the document containing the depositions of witnesses against one accused of a crime.
7.
(in information theory) an indication of the number of possible choices of messages, expressible as the value of some monotonic function of the number of choices, usually the logarithm to the base 2.
8.
Computers.
a.
important or useful facts obtained as output from a computer by means of processing input data with a program: Using the input data, we have come up with some significant new information.
b.
data at any stage of processing (input, output, storage, transmission, etc.).
[Origin: 1350–1400; ME: instruction, teaching, a forming of the mind < ML, L: idea, conception. See inform1, -ation]
—Related forms
in·for·ma·tion·al, adjective
—Synonyms 1. data, facts, intelligence, advice. 2.Information,knowledge,wisdom are terms for human acquirements through reading, study, and practical experience. Information applies to facts told, read, or communicated that may be unorganized and even unrelated: to pick up useful information. Knowledge is an organized body of information, or the comprehension and understanding consequent on having acquired and organized a body of facts: a knowledge of chemistry. Wisdom is a knowledge of people, life, and conduct, with the facts so thoroughly assimilated as to have produced sagacity, judgment, and insight: to use wisdom in handling people.
Knowledge derived from study, experience, or instruction.
Knowledge of specific events or situations that has been gathered or received by communication; intelligence or news. See Synonyms at knowledge.
A collection of facts or data: statistical information.
The act of informing or the condition of being informed; communication of knowledge: Safety instructions are provided for the information of our passengers.
Computer Science Processed, stored, or transmitted data.
A numerical measure of the uncertainty of an experimental outcome.
Law A formal accusation of a crime made by a public officer rather than by grand jury indictment.
1387, "act of informing," from O.Fr. informacion, from L. informationem (nom. informatio) "outline, concept, idea," noun of action from informare (see inform). Meaning "knowledge communicated" is from c.1450. Short form info is attested from 1906. Info-mercial and info-tainment are from 1983.
facts told or knowledge gained or given Example: Can you give me any information about this writer?; the latest information on the progress of the war; He is full of interesting bits of information.
Main Entry: in·for·ma·tion Function: noun : an instrument containing a formal accusation of a crime that is issued by a prosecuting officer and that
serves the same function as an indictment presented by a grand jury —compare COMPLAINT 2, INDICTMENT NOTE: About half the states in the United States allow prosecutors to issue informations. The rest require
indictment.