location
Americannoun
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locations
plural
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a place of settlement, activity, or residence.
This town is a good location for a young doctor.
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a place or situation occupied.
a house in a fine location.
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a tract of land of designated situation or limits.
a mining location.
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Movies. a place outside of the studio that is used for filming a movie, scene, etc.
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Computers. any position on a register or memory device capable of storing one machine word.
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Civil Law. a letting or renting.
idioms
noun
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a site or position; situation
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the act or process of locating or the state of being located
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a place outside a studio where filming is done
shot on location
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a Black African or Coloured township, usually located near a small town See also township
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(formerly) an African tribal reserve
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computing a position in a memory capable of holding a unit of information, such as a word, and identified by its address
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Roman law Scots law the letting out on hire of a chattel or of personal services
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of location
First recorded in 1585–95; from Latin locātiōn-, stem of locātiō “arrangement, rental,” in Late Latin: “placement,” equivalent to locate + -ion
Explanation
A location is a fixed place or position in space. If you are lost, you don't know your location. You can try to figure out your location by consulting a map or asking a friendly local who has a better sense of direction than you do. The noun location means the determination of something's position. If you are on a scavenger hunt, you have to determine the location of various random objects. So on your hunt, finding birthday candles may be easy, but good luck finding the location of a ferrule, unless you happen to know it is the metal band on a pencil that holds the eraser in place.
Vocabulary lists containing location
myPerspectives 10.1
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Let It Be
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Cormac McCarthy's "The Road"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Indonesia experiences frequent earthquakes due to its location in the Pacific "Ring of Fire", an arc of intense seismic activity stretching from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.
From Barron's ● Aug. 17, 2026
Burger King’s average U.S. franchisee profit last year dropped to around $185,000 per location, down from roughly $205,000 in 2023 and 2024, which executives have attributed in part to record beef prices.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026
"Anybody can do what I'm achieving if they do it right and plant the right varieties in the right type of location and if they have the skills and knowledge," he said.
From BBC ● Aug. 16, 2026
The location is about 2 miles from UC Santa Cruz’s campus.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2026
Dr. Harlow thought he had found the precise location of Phineas's troubles once he had the skull.
From "Phineas Gage" by John Fleischman
Wendy’s, which had held the No. 2 spot by sales since 2020, isn’t far behind Burger King in total U.S. sales, despite having hundreds of fewer locations.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026
Don’t worry, you didn’t miss a super-secret cut of Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” that’s only projected on the side of Buc-ee’s locations nationwide.
From Salon ● Aug. 16, 2026
In Cornwall, people gathered at locations including Bude and a stone circle on the moors, with one person describing the experience as "very strange" and "surreal".
From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2026
"In very busy locations with intensive use it is necessary for organisational reasons to ensure supervision in order to guarantee proper use and cleanliness," Sandra Holzinger, a spokeswoman for the municipality, told AFP.
From Barron's ● Aug. 15, 2026
The birds that appear from all manner of locations have no cages at all.
From "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
