Definition of "value"

value

/ˈvæl.juː/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural values
1. The quality (positive or negative) that renders something desirable or valuable.
  Quotations
  United were value for their win and Rooney could have had a hat-trick before half-time, with Paul Scholes also striking the post in the second half.
  2012 May 13, Alistair Magowan, “Sunderland 0-1 Man Utd”, in BBC Sport
2. (uncountable) The degree of importance given to something.
  Quotations
  Okay, for the record, and this is probably obvious, those three departments do actually do things of value, assuming that you find Pell grants, mortgage insurance, low-income housing programs, the National Weather Service, the Patent and Trademark Office, and the Census Bureau to be of some value. And if it comes as news to you that that’s what those departments do, well then, hi Gary, I’m excited you’re watching the show. Uh, quick piece of advice, please stop trying to fuck mountains!
  2016 October 16, “Third Parties”, in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, season 3, episode 26, John Oliver (actor), via HBO
3. That which is valued or highly esteemed, such as one's morals, morality, or belief system.
  Quotations
  WikiLeaks did not cause these uprisings but it certainly informed them. The dispatches revealed details of corruption and kleptocracy that many Tunisians suspected, […]. They also exposed the blatant discrepancy between the west's professed values and actual foreign policies.
  2013 June 7, Gary Younge, “Hypocrisy lies at heart of Manning prosecution”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 18
4. The amount (of money or goods or services) that is considered to be a fair equivalent for something else.
  Quotations
  An article may be possessed of the highest degree of utility, or power to minister to our wants and enjoyments, and may be universally made use of, without possessing exchangeable value.
  1825, John Ramsay McCulloch, Principles of Political Economy
  His design was not to pay him the value of his pictures, because they were above any price.
  1695, C[harles] A[lphonse] du Fresnoy, translated by John Dryden, De Arte Graphica. The Art of Painting, […], London: […] J[ohn] Heptinstall for W. Rogers, […]
  Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too. GDP measures the total value of output in an economic territory. Its apparent simplicity explains why it is scrutinised down to tenths of a percentage point every month.
  2013 August 3, “Boundary problems”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847
5. (music) The relative duration of a musical note.
6. (art) The relative darkness or lightness of a color in (a specific area of) a painting etc.
  Quotations
  When pigments of equal value are mixed together, the resulting color will be a darker value. This is the result of subtraction.
  2006, Edith Anderson Feisner, Colour: How to Use Colour in Art and Design
  Shadows and light move very quickly when you are painting on location. Use Cobalt Blue to quickly establish the painting's values.
  2010, Rose Edin, Dee Jepsen, Color Harmonies: Paint Watercolors Filled with Light
7. (mathematics, physics) Any definite numerical quantity or other mathematical object, determined by being measured, computed, or otherwise defined.
8. Precise meaning; import.
  Quotations
  Yet that learned and diligent annotator has , in a following note , shown his sense of the value of a passage of Livy , marking , in a few words , most strongly the desolation of Italy under the Roman republic
  1784-1810, William Mitford, The History of Greece
9. (in the plural) The valuable ingredients to be obtained by treating a mass or compound; specifically, the precious metals contained in rock, gravel, etc.
10. (obsolete) Esteem; regard.
  Quotations
  The French have a high value for them ; and I confess they are often what they call delicate
  1700, [John] Dryden, “Preface”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […]
  My relation to the person was so near, and my value for him so great.
  1724, [Gilbert] Burnet, edited by [Gilbert Burnet Jr.], Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Time. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] Thomas Ward […]
11. (obsolete) Valour.
  Quotations
  And him with equall valew countervayld
  1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie
verb
third-person singular simple present values, present participle valuing, simple past and past participle valued
1. To estimate the value of; judge the worth of something.
  Quotations
  Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too. […] But as a foundation for analysis it is highly subjective: it rests on difficult decisions about what counts as a territory, what counts as output and how to value it. Indeed, economists are still tweaking it.
  2013 August 3, “Boundary problems”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847
2. To fix or determine the value of; assign a value to, as of jewelry or art work.
3. To regard highly; think much of; place importance upon.
4. To hold dear.