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  • ens
    ens
    noun
    an existing or real thing; an entity.
  • Ens.
    Ens.
    abbreviation
    Ensign.

ens

1 American  
[enz, ens] / ɛnz, ɛns /

noun

Metaphysics.
  • entia
    plural
  1. an existing or real thing; an entity.


Ens. 2 American  

abbreviation

  1. Ensign.


ens 1 British  
/ ɛnz /

noun

  1. being or existence in the most general abstract sense

  2. a real thing, esp as opposed to an attribute; entity

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Ens. 2 British  

abbreviation

  1. Ensign

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

Etymology

Origin of ens

< Latin ēns, present participle of esse to be

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:

"There hasn't been a good travel book about America since Dick ens," said he.

From Time Magazine Archive

The upshot is a crisis in confidence and leadership so severe that it threat ens to impair the conduct and prestige of the presidency.

From Time Magazine Archive

But what most threat ens the regime is the squandered reserves of good will among millions of Chinese who had been impressed by the Communists' display of strength, incorruptibility and iron discipline.

From Time Magazine Archive

The pincers movement converging on Kharkov threat ens the German-occupied Donets basin, most valuable prize of the Nazis in Russia.

From Time Magazine Archive

“Oh, no one,” I say casually, keeping my gaze on the chick- ens.

From "The Queen of Water" by Laura Resau

And their objects, the modes and mutual relations of our primae intentiones or direct concepts, are called entia rationis—logical entities.

From Ontology or the Theory of Being by Peter Coffey

And by his tendance interieure he must mean some vital or other law, equivalent to an entia in matter, which results in, not from manifestation.

From Life: Its True Genesis by R. W. Wright

They are positively intelligible as capable of actual existence, and therefore as distinct from logical entities or entia rationis which are not capable of such existence.

From Ontology or the Theory of Being by Peter Coffey

Such entities, therefore, differ from entia rationis; they, too, are real beings.

From Ontology or the Theory of Being by Peter Coffey

This termination answers to the Latin antia or entia, and the English ance or ence. 

From A Handbook of the Cornish Language chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature by Henry Jenner

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