R E F E R E N C E S
Magnitude 1. size; extent; dimensions. 2. great amount, importance, etc. 3. greatness; great size. 4. moral greatness. 5. Astron. 1. the brightness of a star or other celestial body as viewed by the unaided eye from the earth and expressed by a mathematical ratio of 2.512: a star of the first magnitude is approximately 2 1/2 times as bright as one of the sixth magnitude. b. see absolute magnitude. 6. Math, a number characteristic of a quantity and forming a basis for comparison with similar quantities, as length [ME < L magnitœd—]
[Urdang, Laurence, ed. Random House Dictionary of The English Language. New York: Random House,1968.]
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