See Also: European, Australia, and Far East index (EAFE index)(finance)
European, Australia, and Far East index (EAFE index)(money)
Morgan Stanley Capital International World Index (MSCI World Index)(money)
Retail price index (RPI) or consumer price index (CPI)(finance)
Index(medicine)
Index(law)
CAC 40 index(money)
index(1)(dictionary)
OEX index(finance)
index(2)(dictionary)

index(1) (iou)



index noun. . LME.
[Latin index, indic- forefinger, informer, etc., formed as IN-2 + -dex, -dic-, from base repr. by dicere say, Greek deiknunai show.]
1. The finger used in pointing, the forefinger. Now usu. index finger. LME.
b. Ornithology. The second (occas. the first) digit of the manus in a bird's wing. L19.
2. A piece of wood, metal, etc., which serves as a pointer; spec. (in a scientific instrument) a pointer which moves along a graduated scale so as to show movements or amounts. L16.
b. The arm of a surveying instrument; an alidade. L16.
c. A hand of a clock or watch; the gnomon of a sundial. Now rare. L16.
3. A thing which serves to point to a fact or conclusion; a sign or indication of. L16.
card index: see CARD noun2. Expurgatory Index = Index Expurgatorius below. Index Expurgatorius Roman Catholic Church (now Hist.) an official list of heretical or otherwise undesirable books forbidden to the faithful or sanctioned only after the removal of objectionable passages. the Index = Index Librorum Prohibitorum above.
M. Holroyd Her letters..are a good index to her state of mind. Clive James A town where the index of all achievement is to have your name in lights.
A list of things in (usu. alphabetical) order; esp. a list, usu. at the end of a book, giving the names, topics, etc., mentioned in the book and the places where they occur. Formerly also, a table of contents. L16.
a. Music. = DIRECT noun 2. L16-M19.
b. Typography. A hand-shaped symbol with a pointing finger used to draw attention to a note etc. Also called fist. E18.
Math.
a. A subscript or superscript symbol denoting some characteristic of a quantity or function, as the exponent in x2, etc. L17.
b. The integral part of a logarithm. L17-E19.
c. Computing. A quantity which is fixed in relation to the operations laid down by a program, but which takes a prescribed sequence of values as the program is run. M20.
d. Computing. Any of a sequence of numbers, each specifying one of an ordered set of items. M20.
A number or formula expressing a specific property, esp. a ratio; esp. in Anatomy, a formula expressing the ratio between two dimensions (esp. of the skull). E19.
cephalic index: see CEPHALIC adjective. refractive index: see REFRACTIVE 4. wind-chill index: see WIND noun1.
Economics. (A number in) a scale relating (usu. in the form of a percentage) the level of prices, wages, etc., at a particular time to those at a date taken as a base. L19.
cost-of-living index, retail price index, etc.
Engineering. Each of the predetermined movements during indexing. M20.
Comb.: index case Medicine the first identified case in a group of related cases of a particular communicable or heritable disease; index finger: see sense 1 above; index fossil a fossil that is useful for dating and correlating the strata in which it is found; also called guide fossil; index-link verb trans. adjust the value of (a pension etc.) to the level of the cost-of-living index; index-linked adjective (of a pension, bond, etc.) of which the value is adjusted in line with the cost-of-living index, to offset the effects of inflation; index number (a) = sense 8 above; (b) a number in an index; esp. a vehicle registration number; index register Computing a register whose contents may be added to or subtracted from the address portion of an instruction before execution, which is thus increased or decreased by a prescribed amount, enabling the instruction to be used repeatedly on different operands.
indexless adjective (of a book etc.) lacking an index M19.