mod·i·fi·ca·tion

[mod-uh-fi-key-shuhn]
noun
1.
an act or instance of modifying.
2.
the state of being modified; partial alteration.
3.
a modified form; variety.
4.
Biology. a change in a living organism acquired from its own activity or environment and not transmitted to its descendants.
5.
limitation or qualification.
6.
Grammar.
a.
the use of a modifier in a construction, or of modifiers in a class of constructions or in a language.
b.
the meaning of a modifier, especially as it affects the meaning of the word or other form modified: Limitation is one kind of modification.
c.
a change in the phonological shape of a morpheme, word, or other form when it functions as an element in a construction, as the change of not to -n't in doesn't.
d.
an adjustment in the form of a word as it passes from one language to another.
Origin:
1495–1505; < Latin modificātiōn- (stem of modificātiō), equivalent to modificāt(us) (past participle of modificāre; see modify) + -iōn- -ion

Related forms
in·ter·mod·i·fi·ca·tion, noun
o·ver·mod·i·fi·ca·tion, noun
pre·mod·i·fi·ca·tion, noun
re·mod·i·fi·ca·tion, noun
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Modification is always a great word to know.
So is cell body. Does it mean:
a group of individuals or species having a common ancestry
the compact area of a nerve cell that constitutes the nucleus and surrounding cytoplasm, excluding the axons and dendrites
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Collins
World English Dictionary
modification (ˌmɒdɪfɪˈkeɪʃən) [Click for IPA pronunciation guide]
 
—n
1.  the act of modifying or the condition of being modified
2.  something modified; the result of a modification
3.  a small change or adjustment
4.  grammar the relation between a modifier and the word or phrase that it modifies
 
'modificatory
 
—adj
 
'modificative
 
—adj

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline
Word Origin & History

modification
c.1500, in philosophy, from Fr. modification (14c.) or directly from L. modificationem, noun of action from modificare (see modify). Meaning to alter an object to bring it up to date is from 1774. Biological sense is attested by 1896.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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American Heritage
Medical Dictionary

modification mod·i·fi·ca·tion (mŏd'ə-fĭ-kā'shən)
n.
Any of the changes in an organism that are caused by environment or activity and are not genetically transmissable to offspring.

The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
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American Heritage
Science Dictionary
modification   (mŏd'ə-fĭ-kā'shən)  Pronunciation Key 
A change in an organism that results from external influences and cannot be inherited.
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
Copyright © 2002. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.
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Example sentences
The more usual fashionable wedding is merely a modification of the one outlined above.
Events translated into words undergo a profound modification.
No modification of the tallying machines would be allowed after the ballot choices are specified.
But a new technology could get the same results without actual genetic
  modification.
Matching Quote
"We men know very little a priori, and have our senses to thank for nearly all our knowledge. Through experience we know only appearances ..., but not the modum noumenon ..., not things as they are in themselves.... God knows all things as they are in themselves a priori and immediately through an intuitive understanding.... If we were to flatter ourselves so much as to claim that we know the modum noumenon, then we would have to be in community with God so as to participate immediately in the divine ideas. To expect this in the present life is the business of mystics and theosophists. Thus arises the mystical self- annihilation of China, Tibet, and India, in which one is under the delusion that he will finally be dissolved in the Godhead. Fundamentally Spinozism could just as well be called a great fanaticism as a form of atheism. For of God, the one substance, Spinoza affirms two predicates: extension and thought. Every soul, he says, is only a modification of God's thought, and every body is a modification of his extension. Thus Spinoza assumed that everything existing could be found in God. But by making this assumption he fell into crude contradictions. For if only a single substance exists, then either I must be this substance, and consequently I must be God (but this contradicts my dependency); or else I am an accident (but this contradicts the concept of my ego, in which I think myself as an ultimate subject which is not the predicate of any other being)."
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