Background for index

index

/ˈɪndɛks/

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noun

An alphabetical listing of items and their location.

Examples :

"The index of a book lists words or expressions and the pages of the book upon which they are to be found."

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noun

The index finger; the forefinger.

Examples :

"He used his index finger to point to the correct answer on the test. "

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noun

A movable finger on a gauge, scale, etc.

Examples :

"The thermometer's index showed the temperature was 25 degrees. "

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noun

A symbol resembling a pointing hand, used to direct particular attention to a note or paragraph.

Examples :

"The index in the textbook pointed to the page with the answer to the difficult math problem. "

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noun

That which points out; that which shows, indicates, manifests, or discloses.

Examples :

"The rising temperature is an index of the approaching summer. "

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noun

A sign; an indication; a token.

Examples :

"The teacher's raised eyebrow was an index that she was confused by the student's answer. "

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noun

A type of noun where the meaning of the form changes with respect to the context. E.g., 'Today's newspaper' is an indexical form since its referent will differ depending on the context. See also icon and symbol.

Examples :

""The index of 'my family' refers to different people depending on who is using the expression." "

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noun

A single number calculated from an array of prices or of quantities.

Examples :

"The stock market index showed a slight increase today. "

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noun

A number representing a property or ratio, a coefficient.

Examples :

"The index of difficulty for the math test was 0.8, meaning it was moderately challenging. "

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noun

A raised suffix indicating a power.

Examples :

"The index of 2 in the equation x² means x multiplied by itself twice. "

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noun

An integer or other key indicating the location of data e.g. within an array, vector, database table, associative array, or hash table.

Examples :

"The index of the book chapter I'm studying is page 27. "

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noun

A data structure that improves the performance of operations on a table.

Examples :

"The library's database uses an index to quickly find books by author. "

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noun

A prologue indicating what follows.

Examples :

"The introduction to the chapter, outlining the key topics, served as an index to the rest of the lesson. "

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verb

To arrange an index for something, especially a long text.

Examples :

"To prepare for the history exam, she indexed the chapter notes. "

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verb

To inventory, to take stock.

Examples :

"Before starting the new semester, the teacher indexed all the books in the classroom library. "

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verb

To normalise in order to account for inflation; to correct for inflation by linking to a price index in order to maintain real levels.

Examples :

"To compare salaries across different years, we need to index them to account for inflation. "

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verb

To be indexical for (some situation or state of affairs); to indicate.

Examples :

"The rising temperature outside indexes a heat wave is coming. "

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verb

To access a value in a data container by an index.

Examples :

"To find out how many siblings a student has, you need to index the family's list of children. "

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