representation

noun

Simple meaning

The act of showing or standing for something else

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

rehpruhzentayshuhn

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice

IPA pronunciation (US)

ɹɛpɹəzɛnˈteɪʃən

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

The act of representing; standing in for someone or some group and speaking with authority in their behalf
medicine
An act of representing, i.e. presenting again.
That which represents something else.
A statement of facts and reasons made in appealing or protesting
“Certain representations were made concerning police brutality.”
by extensionuncountable
The appearance(s) of a particular demographic group in a piece of media, particularly in regards to how such appearances are treated.
A factual statement made by one party in order to induce another party to enter into a contract

Word at a Glance

Difficulty: A2 · Elementary (estimated)
Frequency: Common
Typical Use: General English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: The act of representing; standing in for someone or some group and speaking with authority in their behalf

Used this way, representation is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone: Neutral
Formality: Neutral
Intensity: Not strongly marked
How common: Moderately common
Connotation: Matter-of-fact
Usage feel: Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Representing

graphical representation

Factual / statement

knowledge representationpolitical representation

Other combinations

proportional representationsymbolic representationschematic representationgraphic representationvisual representation

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

internal representationnounCompound term
A presentation to the mind in the form of an idea or image.
legal representationnounCompound term
Personal representation that has legal status.
mental representationnounCompound term
A presentation to the mind in the form of an idea or image.
number representation systemnounCompound term
Any notation for the representation of numbers.
pictorial representationnounCompound term
Visual representation as by photography or painting.
positional representation systemnounCompound term
A numeration system in which a real number is represented by an ordered set of characters where the value of a character depends on its position.

Related Words

Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: representing

mental representation

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.