Definition of "field"

field

/fiːld/

noun
plural fields
1. A land area free of woodland, cities, and towns; an area of open country.
  1. (usually in the plural) The open country near or belonging to a town or city.
    Quotations
    Harry shook his head, and wandered away miserable through the fields, and would not in these days even set his foot upon the soil of the park. “He was not going to intrude any farther,” he said to the rector. “You can come to church, at any rate,” his father said, “for he certainly will not be there while you are at the parsonage.” Oh yes, Harry would go to the church. “I have yet to understand that Mr. Prosper is owner of the church, and the path there from the rectory is, at any rate, open to the public;” for at Buston the church stands on one corner of the park.
    1883, Anthony Trollope, Mr. Scarborough's Family, Chap. XXIV
    I corralled the judge, and we started off across the fields, in no very mild state of fear of that gentleman's wife, whose vigilance was seldom relaxed. And thus we came by a circuitous route to Mohair, the judge occupied by his own guilty thoughts, and I by others not less disturbing.
    1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.
2. A wide, open space that is used to grow crops or to hold farm animals, usually enclosed by a fence, hedge or other barrier.
  Quotations
  The castled crag of DrachenfelsFrowns o’er the wide and winding RhineWhose breast of waters broadly swellsBetween the banks which bear the vineAnd hills all rich with blossomed treesAnd fields which promise corn and wineAnd scatter’d cities crowning theseWhose far white walls along them shine,Have strew’d a scene, which I should seeWith double joy wert thou with mo.
  1816, Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto the Third, LV
  Anstruther laughed good-naturedly. “[…] I shall take out half a dozen intelligent maistries from our Press and get them to give our villagers instruction when they begin work and when they are in the fields.”
  1927, F. E. Penny, chapter 5, in Pulling the Strings
3. (geology) A region containing a particular mineral.
4. An airfield, airport or air base; especially, one with unpaved runways.
5. A place where competitive matches are carried out.
  1. A place where a battle is fought; a battlefield.
    Quotations
    Tarry, sweet soul, for mine; then fly abreast,As in this glorious and well-foughten fieldWe kept together in our chivalry!
    c. 1599, William Shakespeare, King Henry V, act IV, scene VI
    […] What though the field be lost?All is not lost; th’ unconquerable will,And study of revenge, immortal hate,And courage never to submit or yield,And what is else not to be overcome;That glory never shall his wrath or might!
    1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 1, Verses 105–110
  2. An area reserved for playing a game or race with one’s physical force.
    Quotations
    Blake was a thorough gambler, and knew well how to make the most of the numerous chances which the turf afforded him. He had a large stud of horses, to the training and working of which he attended almost as closely as the person whom he paid for doing so. But it was in the betting-ring that he was most formidable. It was said, in Kildare Street, that no one at Tattersall's could beat him at a book. He had latterly been trying a wider field than the Curragh supplied him and had, on one or two occasions, run a horse in England with such success, as had placed him, at any rate, quite at the top of the Irish sporting tree.
    1848, Anthony Trollope, The Kellys and the O’Kellys, Chap. III
    (baseball, obsolete) The team in a match that throws the ball and tries to catch it when it is hit by the other team (the bat).
    (baseball) The outfield.
  3. A place where competitive matches are carried out with figures, or playing area in a board game or a computer game.
  4. A competitive situation, circumstances in which one faces conflicting moves of rivals.
    Quotations
    Dr. Finn understood enough of elections for Parliament, and of the nature of boroughs, to be aware that a candidate’s chance of success is very much improved by being early in the field.
    1869, Anthony Trollope, Phineas Finn, Chap. XXV
  5. (metonymically) All of the competitors in any outdoor contest or trial, or all except the favourites in the betting.
6. Any of various figurative meanings, often dead metaphors.
  1. (physics) A physical phenomenon (such as force, potential or fluid velocity) that pervades a region; a mathematical model of such a phenomenon that associates each point and time with a scalar, vector or tensor quantity.
  2. Any of certain structures serving cognition.
    The extent of a given perception.
    A realm of practical, direct or natural operation, contrasted with an office, classroom, or laboratory.
    A domain of study, knowledge or practice.
    Quotations
    As towns continue to grow, replanting vegetation has become a form of urban utopia and green roofs are spreading fast. Last year 1m square metres of plant-covered roofing was built in France, as much as in the US, and 10 times more than in Germany, the pioneer in this field.
    2013 May 10, Audrey Garric, “Urban canopies let nature bloom”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 22, page 30
    An unrestricted or favourable opportunity for action, operation, or achievement.
    Quotations
    Penn was without doubt a man of eminent virtues. He had a strong sense of religious duty and a fervent desire to promote the happiness of mankind. On one or two points of high importance, he had notions more correct than were, in his day, common even among men of enlarged minds: and as the proprietor and legislator of a province which, being almost uninhabited when it came into his possession, afforded a clear field for moral experiments, he had the rare good fortune of being able to carry his theories into practice without any compromise, and yet without any shock to existing institutions.
    1848, Thomas Macaulay, chapter IV, in The History Of England From the Accession of James II, volume 1
    Tidings had reached her of this and the other man’s success, and,—coming near to her still,—of this and that other woman’s earnings in literature. And it had seemed to her that, within moderate limits, she might give a wide field to her hopes.
    1875, Anthony Trollope, chapter 2, in The Way We Live Now, London: Chapman and Hall, […]
    (algebra) A commutative ring satisfying the field axioms.
  3. A physical or virtual location for the input of information in the form of symbols.
    (heraldry) The background of the shield.
    (vexillology) The background of the flag.
    The part of a coin left unoccupied by the main device.
    A section of a form which is supposed to be filled with data.
    Quotations
    From the validation rules table on the previous page, we see that the "Name", "E-mail", and "Gender" fields are required. These fields cannot be empty and must be filled out in the HTML form.
    PHP 5 Forms Required Fields at W3Schools
    A component of a database in which a single unit of information is stored.
    (computing, object-oriented programming) An area of memory or storage reserved for a particular value, subject to virtual access controls.
    Quotations
    Read-only fields allow you to establish a point of data whose value is not known at compile time, but that should never change once established.
    2007, Andrew Troelsen, Pro C# with .NET 3.0, Special Edition, page 82
  4. (electronics, film, animation) Part (usually one half) of a frame in an interlaced signal
7. (cricket) Archaic form of fielder.
  Quotations
  The manager should always choose his own Eleven; and, we have already hinted that fielding, rather than batting, is the qualification. A good field is sure to save runs, though the best batsman may not make any.
  1854, James Pycroft, The Cricket Field
verb
third-person singular simple present fields, present participle fielding, simple past and past participle fielded
1. (transitive, sports) To intercept or catch (a ball) and play it.
2. (intransitive, baseball, softball, cricket, and other batting sports) To be the team catching and throwing the ball, as opposed to hitting it.
3. (transitive, sports) To place (a team, its players, etc.) in a game.
  Quotations
  On balance, it was harsh on Hearts, who had given as good as they got against their more-fancied opponents, who, despite not being at full strength, fielded a multi-million pound team.
  2012 August 23, Alasdair Lamont, “Hearts 0-1 Liverpool”, in BBC Sport‎
4. (transitive) To answer; to address.
5. (transitive) To defeat.
6. (transitive) To execute research (in the field).
7. (transitive, military) To deploy in the field.