declaration
Pluraldeclarations
- 1A formal or emphatic statement that asserts something clearly and decisively, made by speech or in writing.
The committee issued a formal declaration condemning the new policy.
His sudden declaration that he was resigning shocked the whole office.
Similarstatement, announcement, proclamation, pronouncement, assertion
Note
The noun readily takes a that-clause. In Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility (1811), Marianne's declaration that the day would be lastingly fair is a confident prediction, not an official pronouncement. Because the sense is emphatic as well as formal, it covers private insistence as easily as public proclamation. The word came into English through Middle English and Old French from Latin dēclārātiō.
- 2The act or process of formally making something known or asserting it.
The official declaration of bankruptcy followed months of financial trouble.
The declaration of a state of emergency allowed the governor to deploy extra resources.
Similarproclamation, announcement
- 3An official list of items submitted for a legal purpose, such as goods presented at customs.
He signed the customs declaration listing the electronics he was bringing into the country.
Travelers must complete a declaration for any goods over the duty-free limit.
- 4A statement that establishes the existence of an object such as a variable or function, without necessarily defining its contents.
A forward declaration lets the compiler know the function exists before its body appears.
Each declaration introduces a new variable into the current scope.
Note
Programmers set this word against definition. A declaration announces that a variable or function exists and introduces the name later code will use, while the details of what it holds or does may be supplied elsewhere. That separation lets code refer to a function before its body appears. The verb follows the same pattern: you declare a variable before you use it.
- 5In common law, the formal document that sets out a plaintiff's cause of action and informs the defendant of the grounds for the lawsuit.
The plaintiff's declaration laid out each fact supporting the claim for damages.
Counsel reviewed the declaration carefully before responding to the lawsuit.
Similarcomplaint
Note
A term from common-law pleading, where the declaration belongs to the plaintiff alone. It must carry the facts that would sustain the cause of action, not merely voice a grievance, and it tells the defendant what the suit rests on. Keep it apart from the customs-style list. In a lawsuit, the declaration is the written statement of the claim itself.
- 6In cricket, the act by which a batting captain chooses to end the team's innings before all the batsmen are out.
England's declaration came just before lunch, setting a target of 350 runs.
A bold declaration gave the bowlers enough time to take all ten wickets.
Note
Cricket's tactical gamble: a captain who judges the runs sufficient closes the innings before all ten wickets have fallen. The aim is to leave enough time to bowl the opposition out and force a result. The matching verb takes the same object: a captain declares an innings closed, or simply declares. It is a choice, unlike being bowled out, which happens to a side.
Less common meaning
- 7An open, formal statement of one's romantic love for another person.
His declaration of love came in a long letter she kept for years.
I went to Miss Mills's, fraught with a declaration.
1850, Charles Dickens, David CopperfieldNote
Here the object goes unsaid. In Dickens's David Copperfield (1850), the narrator goes to Miss Mills's "fraught with a declaration." In Maugham's Of Human Bondage (1915), a young man makes "the first declaration in his life." Readers understood love without being told. The bare usage is now archaic, so a modern writer should spell out declaration of love. On its own, the noun reads as the general assertion.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of declaration apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origin
This word passed into Middle English from Old French "declaration" (modern French "déclaration"), which came from Latin "dēclārātiōnem," the accusative form of "dēclārātiō."