definitions Apr09

nature
- noun
1. The material world and its phenomena.
2. The forces and processes that produce and control all the phenomena of the material world: the laws of nature.
3. The world of living things and the outdoors: the beauties of nature.
4. A primitive state of existence, untouched and uninfluenced by civilization or artificiality: couldn't tolerate city life anymore and went back to nature.
5. Theology Humankind's natural state as distinguished from the state of grace.
6. A kind or sort: confidences of a personal nature.
7. The essential characteristics and qualities of a person or thing.
8. The fundamental character or disposition of a person; temperament.
9. The natural or real aspect of a person, place, or thing; disposition.
10. The processes and functions of the body.
- dictionary.com

The word nature means the universe, with all its phenomena.
It is derived from the Latin word natura, or "essential qualities, innate disposition," but literally meaning "birth". Natura was a Latin translation of the Greek word physis (φύσις), which originally related to the intrinsic characteristics that plants, animals, and other features of the world develop of their own accord.

Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world or material world. Nature refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. Manufactured objects and human interaction generally are not considered part of nature, and are referred to as artificial or man-made.

The concept of nature as a whole, the physical universe, is one of several expansions of the original notion; it began with certain core applications of the word φύσις by pre-Socratic philosophers, and has steadily gained currency ever since.
Within the various uses of the word today, nature may refer to the general realm of various types of living plants and animals, and in some cases to the processes associated with inanimate objects–the way that particular types of things exist and change of their own accord, such as the weather and geology of the Earth, and the matter and energy of which all these things are composed. It is often taken to mean the "natural environment" or wilderness - wild animals, rocks, forest, beaches, and in general those things that have not been substantially altered by human intervention, or which persist despite human intervention. This concept of natural things implies a distinction between the natural and the artificial, with the latter being understood as that which has been brought into being by a human consciousness or a human mind.
- wikipedia