solution

From Middle English solucioun, from Old French solucion (French solution), from Latin solūtiōnem, accusative singular of solūtiō, from the verb solvō. Compare solve, -tion.

• IPA^(key): /səˈl(j)uːʃən/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːʃən

solution (countable and uncountable, plural solutions)

1. (physical chemistry) A homogeneous mixture, which may be liquid, gas or solid, formed by dissolving one or more substances.
2. An act, plan or other means, used or proposed, to solve a problem.
   • 1971, O. Phillip Hicks, “The Computer: Is It the Solution or the Problem?”, in ACM: Proceedings of 1971 Annual Conference‎, page 362:

     All too often, computer technology is treated as a solution in search of a problem. In fact, it is not uncommon for people working with computers to become critical of the problem because it doesn't seem to fit the solution they have generated.

   • 2013 June 29, Leo Montada, “Coping with Life Stress”, in Herman Steensma, Riël Vermunt, editors, Social Justice in Human Relations Volume 2: Societal and Psychological Consequences of Justice and Injustice‎, Springer Science & Business Media, →ISBN, page 26:

     The fourth model is called the enlightment model: Actors are seen to be responsible for problems but unable or unwilling to provide solutions. They are believed to need discipline provided by authoritative guidance. The Alcoholic Anonymous^[sic] groups are considered prototypical for this model.

3. An answer to a problem.
   • 1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Parting”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 322:

     How many beautiful creations, how many glorious dreams went with him to the tomb! but the unfulfilled destiny of genius is a mystery whose solution is not of earth.

   • 1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Hocussing of Cigarette”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:

     Then I had a good think on the subject of the hocussing of Cigarette, and I was reluctantly bound to admit that once again the man in the corner had found the only possible solution to the mystery.

   • 2022 February 7, Charles Hugh Smith, How Empires Die‎:

     States and empires fail when they are no longer the solution, they are the problem.

4. (marketing) A product, service or suite thereof, especially software.
5. (law, UK, archaic, rare) Satisfaction of a claim or debt.
   • 1681, Scotland. Court of Session, edited by Lord Alexander Fraser Tytler Woodhouselee and William Maxwell Morison, The decisions of the Court of Session‎, published 1802, page 2927:

     he was not obliged to repeat what he had received, in solution of a just debt

   • 1827, John Erskine, The Principles of the Law of Scotland‎, page 508:

     A disposition granted on a cessio bonorum is merely in farther security to the creditors, not in satisfaction or in solution of the debts.

   • 1879, “Conflict of Law — Promissory notes governed by law of place where made and payable”, in Albany Law Journal, volume 20:

     It is said that there is no violation of the law of this State in the simple act of paying money in solution of a promise to do so

6. The act of dissolving, especially of a solid by a fluid; dissolution.
   • 1789, Erasmus Darwin, The Loves of the Plants, J. Johnson, page 28:

     This accounts for the very rapid vegetation in the northern latitudes, after the solution of the snows.

7. (medicine, archaic) The crisis of a disease.

• (antonym(s) of “answer to a problem”): problem
• (antonym(s) of “act of dissolving”): precipitation

solution (third-person singular simple present solutions, present participle solutioning, simple past and past participle solutioned)

1. To treat with a solution.
   • 1898 August 6, Tavistock Chambers, “Correspondence: Some Interesting Tyre Experiences”, in The Autocar, volume 3, number 114, page 508:

     The reason for having the rubber so thick is that the cuts one is bound to get do not penetrate right through the rubber to the canvas or fabric, as I found it was really throught htis latter rotting that the trouble with the tyres occurred, whereas, when I had thick rubber, and particularly, be it noted, not one piece of rubber, but two pieces, namely, the rubber, cover proper and then a thick rubber band solutioned on top of this, I found from experience that, say, the rubber was half an inch thick, the cuts seemed to go much more easily through one piece of rubber than they did through two pieces of rubber, each a quarter of an inch thick, solutioned together.

   • 1903, Patents for Inventions: Abridgments of Specifications, page 23:

     The end of the casing 1 is flanged to receive a rubber tube 21 having and extension 22 to which the air chamber is solutioned or similarly fixed.

   • 2014, Peter Rudolph, Handbook of Crystal Growth: Bulk Crystal Growth, →ISBN, page 423:

     During the solutioning process, nucleation and growth of secondary phase γ' precipitates occur, in which the embryos are initially of spherical and then cubic shapes.

Inherited from Old French solucion, from Latin solūtiōnem, from the verb solvō.

• IPA^(key): /sɔ.ly.sjɔ̃/
• Homophone: solutions

• Audio

  (file)

solution f (plural solutions)

1. solution

   ne pas trouver de solutions à ses problèmes ― not to be able to solve one's problems

• dissoudre
• insoluble
• résolu
• résolution
• résolvant
• résoudre
• solvant

• → Romanian: soluție
• → Turkish: solüsyon

• “solution”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.