It allows you to define the concept of a thermometer. You have three objects, one of them could be a thermometer.

从热的物体流向冷的物体,由此我们可以定义温度，我们还可以用它来定义温度计：

麻省理工公开课 - 热力学与动力学课程节选

Hermeneutics is, well, more or less by nature and by definition, interested in meaning.

解释学从定义来看，注重事物的含义。

耶鲁公开课 - 文学理论导论课程节选

That is to say I can now reroute that sodium plus chlorine reaction and go a different way, but I still end up with the same change in energy.

也就是说，我可以重新定义一种,钠与氯的反应途径,从另一种途径来实现反应，但是能量的变化过程相同。

麻省理工公开课 - 固态化学导论课程节选

The citizen in an unqualified sense Aristotle writes is defined by no other thing so much as sharing in decision and office.

生活方式的人,亚里士多德写到公民的定义,从广义的观点看来不外乎就是分享决定和官职。

耶鲁公开课 - 政治哲学导论课程节选

But there's nothing mysterious about death from the physicalist point of view, at least about the basic idea of what's going on in death.

但是死亡没有什么神秘可言,从物理主义的角度来看,至少死亡的基本定义是不神秘的

耶鲁公开课 - 死亡课程节选

So, if you look in chapter one, you will find these definitions for different atomic groupings starting down here with the elements and moving through up through complex matter.

如果你们读第一章，你们会发现不同的原子组的定义,从底下开始有一些基本原理,往上还有复杂的物质。

麻省理工公开课 - 固态化学导论课程节选

We can say there's a great deal to learn about what people think literature is and we can develop very interesting kinds of thinking about the variety of ways in which these ideas are expressed.

可以说，关于人们对文学的定义,我们还有很多需要学习,我们也能从它们的各种不同的表达方法中,产生有趣的想法。

耶鲁公开课 - 文学理论导论课程节选