Dictionaries › English

reserve

Pronunciation: /ɹɪˈzɝv/

The English word “reserve” has 19 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. The act of reserving or keeping back; reservation; exception.
  2. Restraint of freedom in words or actions; backwardness; caution in personal behavior.
  3. A natural resource known to exist but not currently exploited.
  4. A tract of land reserved, or set apart, for a particular purpose
  5. A tract of land set apart for the use of an Aboriginal group: Indian reserve.
  6. A body of troops kept in the rear of an army drawn up for battle, reserved to support the other lines as occasion may require; a force or body of troops kept for an exigency.
  7. Funds kept on hand to meet planned or unplanned financial requirements.
  8. A reserve price in an auction.
  9. Wine held back and aged before being sold.
  10. Absence of color or decoration; the state of being left plain.
  11. A member of a team who does not participate from the start of the game, but can be used to replace tired or injured team-mates.
  12. A group or pile of cards dealt out at the beginning of a patience or solitaire game to be used during play.
  13. In exhibitions, a distinction indicating that the recipient will get a prize in the event of another person being disqualified.
  14. A resist.
  15. A preparation used on an object being electroplated to fix the limits of the deposit.

verb

  1. To keep back; to retain.
  2. To keep in store for future or special use.
  3. To book in advance; to make a reservation for.
  4. To make an exception of; to except.

Etymology

From Old French reserver, from Latin reservō (“to reserve, retain”).

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “reserve” there

More English words

About this dictionary

The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.