English Style Author:George Frederick Graham Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 35 PART II. DEFINITIONS, DESCRIPTION, NARRATIVE, ETC. ON DEFINITIONS.' A Definition is the explanation of a word according to certain principles. ... more »Every definition consists of three parts: 1. the subject; 2. the genus; and 3. the species. 1. The subject is the word to be defined. 2. The genus shows to what class of beings or things the subject belongs. 3. The species shows how the subject differs from others of the same genus, thus: subject. genus. species. (Justice) is (the virtue) (of giving to every man his due.) Here "justice"is the subject defined: the word " virtue " is the genus, that is, it shows to what class 1 The word " definition" is derived from the Latin verb definire, which signifies to lay down the boundary or extent of the meaning of a word. of things the subject, "justice," belongs: and lastly, "of giving to every man his due" expresses the species of that genus ; it specifies the virtue, and shows how this virtue (justice) differs from other virtues. The learner must here be cautioned against several errors into which he is likely to fall in writing definitions. 1. Never define by a single term. As every definition must consist of three parts, and as defining a subject by a single term will give but two, to do so is obviously an error. Besides, it may be laid down as a principle that no one word will ever define another. Thus, to say that " courage is fortitude "would be wrong; for though these terms are very like each other in meaning, they are not identical. 2. Never define by a negative. The reason why a negative definition is faulty, is that in such a case the required information is not given ; as when one would say "courage is not cowardice," or "joy is not sorrow," we are in no way enlightened as to the...« less