English Wikipedia has an article on:

material

Wikipedia

From Middle English material, from Late Latin māteriālis, from Latin māteria (“wood, material, substance”), from māter (“mother”). Displaced native Middle English andweorc, andwork (“material, matter”) (from Old English andweorc (“matter, substance, material”)). Doublet of materiel.

• (Received Pronunciation, General Australian) IPA^(key): /məˈtɪə.ɹi.əl/
• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /məˈtɪɹ.i.əl/

  • Audio (California):

    (file)

• (Indic) IPA^(key): /mɛˈʈir(ɪ)jəl/
• Hyphenation: ma‧te‧ri‧al

material (comparative more material, superlative most material)

1. Of, relating to, or consisting of matter, especially physical.

   This compound has a number of interesting material properties.

   • 1913, Alfred Bowyer Sharpe, Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Evil:

     the material elements of the universe

2. Of, relating to, or affecting physical well-being; corporeal; bodily.

   Antonym: spiritual

   material needs

3. (logic) Of or relating to the matter of reasoning, as distinguished from the form of it, especially empirical.

   material cause

   the material aspect of being

4. (especially law) Having real importance or great consequences; significant; substantial.

   Antonym: immaterial

   found a material difference between two things

   You've made several material contributions to this project.

   This is the most material fact in this lawsuit.

   • 1685 March 20 (Gregorian calendar), John Evelyn, “[Diary entry for 10 March 1685]”, in William Bray, editor, Memoirs, Illustrative of the Life and Writings of John Evelyn, […], 2nd edition, volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […]; and sold by John and Arthur Arch, […], published 1819, →OCLC:

     discourse, which was always material, not trifling

   • 1689 (indicated as 1690), [John Locke], chapter 2, in An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding. […], London: […] Eliz[abeth] Holt, for Thomas Basset, […], →OCLC, book I, page 3:

     I shall, in the account of simple ideas, set down only such as are most material to our present purpose.

5. Relating to or concerned with what is purely physical rather than intellectual or spiritual, especially excessively so; materialistic.

   the material world

   interested only in material progress

   Don't let material concerns get in the way of living a happy life.

   • 1984, Peter Brown and Robert Rans, “Material Girl”, in Like a Virgin‎^[1], performed by Madonna:

     'Cause we are living in a material world / And I am a material girl / You know that we are living in a material world / And I am a material girl

6. (obsolete) Full of substance or otherwise meaning.

   Synonyms: bulky, massive, solid, meaty

7. (obsolete) In an important degree.

• (related to matter): See also Thesaurus:substantial
• (significant): See also Thesaurus:pertinent

English Wikipedia has an article on:

material

Wikipedia

material (countable and uncountable, plural materials)

2. A basic matter (as metal, wood, plastic, fiber, etc.) from which the whole or the greater part of something physical (as a machine, tool, building, fabric, etc.) is made.

   Synonym: raw material

   Asphalt, composed of oil and sand, is a widely used material for roads.

   • 1820, Encyclopaedia Britannica; Or A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Miscellaneous Literature‎^[2], 6th edition, volume 20, Edinburgh: Archibald Constable and Company, page 501:

     In trumpets for assisting the hearing, all reverbation of the trumpet must be avoided. It must be made thick, of the least elastic materials, and covered with cloth externally. For all reverbation lasts for a short time, and produces new sounds which mix with those which are coming in.

   • 2012 March, Lee A. Groat, “Gemstones”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 128:

     Although there are dozens of different types of gems, among the best known and most important are […] . (Common gem materials not addressed in this article include amber, amethyst, chalcedony, garnet, lazurite, malachite, opals, peridot, rhodonite, spinel, tourmaline, turquoise and zircon.)

4. (sometimes collective, preceded by a qualifying word) A person, or people collectively, who are qualified or suited for a certain position or activity.

   boy/girlfriend material

   marriage material

   We have lots of presidential material in various public offices.

   • 2021 November 20, Alex Williams, “To Breed or Not to Breed?”, in The New York Times‎^[3], →ISSN:

     Before she married her husband, Kiersten Little considered him ideal father material.

6. (usually plural) Apparatus for doing or making something.
   • 2013 June 14, Jonathan Freedland, “Obama's once hip brand is now tainted]”, in The Guardian Weekly‎^[4], volume 189, number 1, page 18:

     Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet.

7. Something (as data, observations, perceptions or ideas) that may be incorporated, elaborated or otherwise reworked into a finished form or new form, or may serve as the basis for arriving at interpretations, judgments or conclusions.

   teaching materials

   We were a warm-up act at the time; we didn't have enough original material to headline.

   • 1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →ISBN, page vii:

     With fresh material, taxonomic conclusions are leavened by recognition that the material examined reflects the site it occupied; a herbarium packet gives one only a small fraction of the data desirable for sound conclusions. Herbarium material does not, indeed, allow one to extrapolate safely: what you see is what you get […]

9. Cloth to be made into a garment; woven fabric.

   a piece of material

   You'll need about a yard of material to make this.

   • 1977, Agatha Christie, An Autobiography, part II, London: Collins, →ISBN, page 4:

     Mind you, clothes were clothes in those days. There was a great deal of them, lavish both in material and in workmanship.

10. The elements, constituents or substance of which something physical or non-physical composed of or can be made of.

    The solid materials of the mixture will settle to the bottom of the container.

    The material of his character was basically good.

    • 1642, Daniel Rogers […], Naaman the Syrian, his Disease and Cvre, London: Th. Harper for Philip Nevil, unnumbered page:

      […] I beleeve that as they ſay of the materialls of the world, they would ſoone diſolve if the ſoule of it were taken away […]

    • 2013 July-August, Stephen P. Lownie, David M. Pelz, “Stents to Prevent Stroke”, in American Scientist:

      As we age, the major arteries of our bodies frequently become thickened with plaque, a fatty material with an oatmeal-like consistency that builds up along the inner lining of blood vessels.

11. (graphical user interface) An element of a design language associated with a certain style of rendering on the display.
12. (chess) All of a player's pieces and pawns on the chessboard, excluding the king.
13. (Ireland, now rare) The ingredients for making whisky punch.

    Synonym: matts

14. (rare) The materiel of an army.
15. (obsolete) Things that are material.

• See also Thesaurus:material

• matter

• materiel

material (third-person singular simple present materials, present participle (US) materialing or (UK) materialling, simple past and past participle (US) materialed or (UK) materialled)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To form from matter; to materialize.
   • 1642, [Thomas Browne], “(please specify the page)”, in Religio Medici, London: […] Andrew Crooke, →OCLC:

     I believe that the whole frame of a beast doth perish, and is left in the same state after death as before it was materialled unto life.

• “material, adj., n. & v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
• Philip Babcock Gove et al., editors (1961), “material n”, in Webster's Third New International Dictionary  […], volume II (H to R), published 1981, →ISBN, page 1392

• “material”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.

• Armalite

Borrowed from Latin materiālis.

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic) [mə.tə.ɾiˈal]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [ma.te.ɾiˈal]

• Audio (Barcelona):

  (file)

material m or f (masculine and feminine plural materials)

1. relative to material substance or matter, that is physical or existing in the real world

   Synonyms: real, físic, substancial

   Antonyms: espiritual, ideal, immaterial, incorpori, irreal

material m (plural materials)

1. material, things or tools used in an operation, in a service.

   Ja tenim tot el material d'impremta preparat

   We already have all the printing material ready

2. material, components that go into the construction or the composition of something.

   Demà portaran el guix, les totxanes i tots els altres materials de construcció

   Tomorrow they will bring the plaster, bricks and all the other building materials

3. (plural) material, data, ideas, or documents that serve to compose an intellectual work.

   Té prou materials per a escriure una altra novel·la

   He has enough material to write another novel

• matèria

• “material”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007

From Latin materialis.

material

1. material

• Mirjejev, V. A.; Usejinov, S. M. (2002), Ukrajinsʹko-krymsʹkotatarsʹkyj slovnyk [Ukrainian – Crimean Tatar Dictionary]‎^[5], Simferopol: Dolya, →ISBN

material m (plural materiais)

1. material

Indonesian Wikipedia has an article on:

material

Wikipedia ^id

From Dutch materiaal. Doublet of materiel.

• (Standard Indonesian) IPA^(key): /mateˈrial/ [ma.t̪eˈri.al]
• Rhymes: -al
• Syllabification: ma‧te‧ri‧al

matérial (plural material-material)

1. material (matter which may be shaped or manipulated, particularly in making something)

• “material”, in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia [Great Dictionary of the Indonesian Language] (in Indonesian), Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016

• materiel, materiall, materyal, materyall, matryal

From Latin māteriālis; equivalent to matere +‎ -al.

• IPA^(key): /matɛriˈaːl/, /maːtɛriˈaːl/, /maˈtɛːrial/, /matɛriˈɛːl/, /maˈtɛːriɛl/

material (plural and weak singular materiale)

1. Extant in matter or having physical form; material.
2. Not supernatural or spiritual; regular, conventional, worldly.
3. Being the physical attributes or properties of a thing.
4. Affecting or modifying physical matter or attributes.
5. (rare) Prominent, significant.

• English: material

• “mā̆teriāl, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 12 March 2019.

From Late Latin materiale.

material n (definite singular materialet, indefinite plural material or materialer, definite plural materiala or materialene)

1. alternative form of materiale

• råmaterial

• “material” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Borrowed from Late Latin māteriālis, from Latin māteria (“wood, material, substance”), from māter (“mother”). By surface analysis, matéria +‎ -al.

• Audio (Portugal (Porto)):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -al, -aw
• Hyphenation: ma‧te‧ri‧al

material m (plural materiais)

1. material; stuff (the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object)
2. material (sample or specimens for study)
   1. footage (amount of film produced)
   2. (education) resources used in class
      • 2010, Luiz Artur Ferrareto, Luciano Klöckner, E o rádio?: novos horizontes midiáticos, EDIPUCRS, →ISBN, page 130:

        Os equipamentos utilizados (notebook, mesa de som, aparelho mini system - caixa de retorno, microfones e gravadores) eram escassos e insuficientes pois muito material licitado pela Instituição ainda não havia chegado. Somente no segundo semestre de 2008 pode se contar com um computador exclusivo para as aulas de rádio, no qual foram instalados software de programas de captação e edição de áudio.

        (please add an English translation of this quotation)

3. tackle; supplies; gear; rig (objects collected for use in a particular activity)

   material escolar ― school supplies

   material de pesca ― fishing gear

material m or f (plural materiais)

1. (chemistry) material (relating to or composed of matter)
2. (religion) material; worldly (relating to physical rather than spiritual matters)

   Synonym: terreno

3. (of a person, derogatory) materialistic; consumeristic (obsessed with consumer goods)

   Synonyms: materialista, consumista

• materialismo
• materialista
• materialmente

• matéria

• “material”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2025

Borrowed from French matériel, from Latin materialis. By surface analysis, materie +‎ -al.

material n (plural materiali)

1. material

material m or n (feminine singular materială, masculine plural materiali, feminine/neuter plural materiale)

1. material

Borrowed from Late Latin māteriālis.

• IPA^(key): /mateˈɾjal/ [ma.t̪eˈɾjal]
• Rhymes: -al
• Syllabification: ma‧te‧rial

material m or f (masculine and feminine plural materiales)

1. material

material m (plural materiales)

1. material

• “material”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024

• Audio:

  (file)

material n

1. a material
2. a matter, a subject (of study)

• material in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)