value. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

The American Heritage^® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

value

SYLLABICATION:	val·ue
PRONUNCIATION:	vly
NOUN:	1. An amount, as of goods, services, or money, considered to be a fair and suitable equivalent for something else; a fair price or return. 2. Monetary or material worth: the fluctuating value of gold and silver. 3. Worth in usefulness or importance to the possessor; utility or merit: the value of an education. 4. A principle, standard, or quality considered worthwhile or desirable: “The speech was a summons back to the patrician values of restraint and responsibility” (Jonathan Alter). 5. Precise meaning or import, as of a word. 6. Mathematics An assigned or calculated numerical quantity. 7. Music The relative duration of a tone or rest. 8. The relative darkness or lightness of a color. See table at color. 9. Linguistics The sound quality of a letter or diphthong. 10. One of a series of specified values: issued a stamp of new value.
TRANSITIVE VERB:	Inflected forms: val·ued, val·u·ing, val·ues 1. To determine or estimate the worth or value of; appraise. 2. To regard highly; esteem. See synonyms at appreciate. 3. To rate according to relative estimate of worth or desirability; evaluate: valued health above money. 4. To assign a value to (a unit of currency, for example).
ETYMOLOGY:	Middle English, from Old French, from feminine past participle of valoir, to be strong, be worth, from Latin valre. See wal- in Appendix I.
OTHER FORMS:	valu·er —NOUN


The American Heritage^® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.