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information

[in-fer-mey-shuh n]
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noun
  1. knowledge communicated or received concerning a particular fact or circumstance; news: information concerning a crime.
  2. knowledge gained through study, communication, research, instruction, etc.; factual data: His wealth of general information is amazing.
  3. the act or fact of informing.
  4. an office, station, service, or employee whose function is to provide information to the public: The ticket seller said to ask information for a timetable.
  5. Directory Assistance.
  6. Law.
    1. an official criminal charge presented, usually by the prosecuting officers of the state, without the interposition of a grand jury.
    2. a criminal charge, made by a public official under oath before a magistrate, of an offense punishable summarily.
    3. the document containing the depositions of witnesses against one accused of a crime.
  7. (in information theory) an indication of the number of possible choices of messages, expressible as the value of some monotonic function of the number of choices, usually the logarithm to the base 2.
  8. Computers.
    1. important or useful facts obtained as output from a computer by means of processing input data with a program: Using the input data, we have come up with some significant new information.
    2. data at any stage of processing (input, output, storage, transmission, etc.).
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Origin of information

1350–1400; Middle English: instruction, teaching, a forming of the mind < Medieval Latin, Latin: idea, conception. See inform1, -ation
Related formsin·for·ma·tion·al, adjectivenon·in·for·ma·tion·al, adjective

Synonyms

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1. data, facts, intelligence, advice. 2. Information, knowledge, wisdom are terms for human acquirements through reading, study, and practical experience. Information applies to facts told, read, or communicated that may be unorganized and even unrelated: to pick up useful information. Knowledge is an organized body of information, or the comprehension and understanding consequent on having acquired and organized a body of facts: a knowledge of chemistry. Wisdom is a knowledge of people, life, and conduct, with the facts so thoroughly assimilated as to have produced sagacity, judgment, and insight: to use wisdom in handling people.
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

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British Dictionary definitions for informational

information

noun
  1. knowledge acquired through experience or study
  2. knowledge of specific and timely events or situations; news
  3. the act of informing or the condition of being informed
    1. an office, agency, etc, providing information
    2. (as modifier)information service
    1. a charge or complaint made before justices of the peace, usually on oath, to institute summary criminal proceedings
    2. a complaint filed on behalf of the Crown, usually by the attorney general
  6. computing
    1. the meaning given to data by the way in which it is interpreted
    2. another word for data (def. 2)
  7. too much information informal I don't want to hear any more
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Derived Formsinformational, adjective
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

Word Origin and History for informational

information

n.

late 14c., "act of informing," from Old French informacion, enformacion "information, advice, instruction," from Latin informationem (nominative informatio) "outline, concept, idea," noun of action from past participle stem of informare (see inform). Meaning "knowledge communicated" is from mid-15c. Information technology attested from 1958. Information revolution from 1969.

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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper

Idioms and Phrases with informational

information

see under gold mine.

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The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.