entity

From the Medieval Latin entitās, from ēns (“being”) (stem: ent-) + -tās (compare essentia), see there for more information.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɛn.tɪ.ti/

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entity (plural entities)

1. That which has a distinct existence as an individual unit. Often used for organisations which have no physical form.
   • 1951 April, D. S. Barrie, “British Railways: A Survey, 1948-1950”, in Railway Magazine, number 600, page 223:

     The organisational and administrative tasks involved in welding the railways into a single entity have also received much publicity.

   • 1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, →ISBN, page ix:

     It is also pertinent to note that the current obvious decline in work on holarctic hepatics most surely reflects a current obsession with cataloging and with nomenclature of the organisms—as divorced from their study as living entities.

2. The existence of something considered apart from its properties.
3. (databases) Anything about which information or data can be stored in a database; in particular, one item in an organised array or set of individual elements or parts of the same type.
4. The state or quality of being or existence.

   The group successfully maintains its tribal entity.

5. A spirit, ghost, or the like.
   • 1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 231:

     [B]ut only too often séances degenerate into pure sorcery or necromancy, attracting all kinds of undeveloped and earth-bound entities.

6. (science fiction) An alien lifeform that has no corporeal body.

• See also Thesaurus:entity

• duality
• trinity
• relationship

• entity on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “entity”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “entity”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “entity” (US) / “entity” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.
• “entity”, in Oxford Learner's Dictionaries
• “entity”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.

• IPA^(key): [ˈɛntɪtɪ]

entity

1. inflection of entita:
   1. genitive singular
   2. nominative/accusative/vocative plural