materi-

1. The total weight of all living things in a given area: Biomaterial refers to the complete weight of the members of a biotic community, of a species population, or of a habitat, and can be a measure of total biotic productivity.
2. The total weight of the organic substance (as plankton) or organisms in a given area: Biomaterial can be measured as volume, mass (live, dead, dry, ash-free weight), or energy (calories), or as a standing crop.
3. Material that can safely be implanted into the human body and left there without causing an adverse reaction: At the hospital, the biomaterial, as a heart, can be used to save a person's life.
4. A plastic, fabric, or other material used to construct an implantable prosthesis and chosen for its biocompatibility: Dr. Smart was happy to receive the perfect biomaterial, an artificial joint, for his patient.

Consisting of the same material with something else: The dress and the jacket are commaterial in that they are both made of cotton and have the same color.

1. To disappear, or to cause something to disappear.
2. To deprive of or to lose apparent physical appearance; to make or become immaterial.

1. Lacking relevance or importance; inconsequential or irrelevant.
2. Having no material body or form.
3. Not made of matter, or not physically real.

1. In an immaterial manner; that is, without matter or corporeal substance.
2. In an unimportant manner or degree.

1. Substance or matter.
2. In medicine, a whitish or cream-colored cheesy mass deposited around the necks of the teeth, composed of food debris, mucin, and dead epithelial cells.

1. Substances used in medicine.
2. That branch of medicine which deals with the properties of drugs and with their application in the cure of diseases.

A component of a nation's economic accounts that represents inputs of materials, their accumulation, and their outflow to the natural environment and other economies.

1. The relation between primary material demand and the gross domestic product of a country in a given year; such as, tons of copper used per monetary value of gross domestic product.
2. A similar relation between material demand and population.

1. Any process of recovering or extracting valuable or useful materials from waste or scrap.
2. Specifically, the reuse of specific consumer or industrial items in order to conserve scarce materials; reduce pollution and littering, etc.

1. Woven flat cloth or fabric.
2. A substance used to make things.
3. Information; such as, facts, notes, and research used in the making of a book, movie, or other creative work.
4. Someone regarded in terms of his or her suitability to perform a particular job or task.
5. The tools and other things needed to perform a particular task.
6. Relating to or consisting of solid physical matter; such as, the material universe.
7. Worldly, relating to physical well-being rather than emotional or spiritual well-being; emphasis on material comforts.
8. In law, crucial to the outcome of a court case or to the validity of a legal document: "She was a material witness."
9. Etymology: in the 12th century, directly from or via Anglo-Norman matere and French matiere, from Latin materia, "timber, stuff of which something is made"; later, "subject, topic", formed from Latin mater "mother" which was translated from a Greek word for "wood, forest, timber, stuff, matter".

The material substance of the universe that has mass, occupies space, and is convertible to energy.

1. A desire for wealth and material possessions with little interest in ethical or spiritual matters.
2. Devotion to material wealth and possessions at the expense of spiritual or intellectual values.
3. The philosophical theory that physical matter is the only reality and that psychological states; such as, emotions, reason, thought, and desire will eventually be explained as physical functions.

1. A person who is markedly more concerned with material things than with spiritual, intellectual, or cultural values.
2. Someone who denies the existence of spiritual substances, and maintains that the soul of man is the result of a particular organization of matter in the body.

1. The state or quality of being material and physical.
2. Physical substance; matter.
3. Relevance requiring careful consideration.

1. An appearance in bodily form; such as, of a disembodied spirit.
2. The process of coming into being; becoming a reality.
3. The formation of a visible and tangible object or human shape during a seance with a mediumship (a person believed to act as an intermediary between discarnate entities and the living).
4. Something that has been materialized (assumed a bodily form); especially, an apparition (an unusual or unexpected appearance of a spirit or ghost).