objective

Pluralobjectives

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A goal that someone works hard to achieve.

   The general explained the operation's primary objective to his officers.

   Each department submitted its quarterly objectives last week.

   Similargoal, aim, target

   Note

   The everyday noun of plans and campaigns, which collocates readily with main, primary and true. Bernard Shaw's preface to Pygmalion (1912) speaks of Henry Sweet's 'true objective', and railway writers use it for a destination. Planning language often ranks it below goal. Christine Wilding's Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (2012) calls objectives 'the stepping stones' toward goals and says they must be verifiable in some way.

2. 2
   adjective

   Based on observed facts rather than personal feelings or opinions.

   The committee wanted an objective assessment grounded in measurable data.

   Scientific findings should remain objective, resting on repeatable observations.

   Similarfactual

   Oppositesubjective

   Note

   Where the 'unbiased' sense describes a person keeping feelings in check, here the word describes a method or standard that rests on facts anyone could check. It sits most comfortably beside criteria, procedures and measures. The Constitution of Greece of 1975 requires public hiring by competitive examination or by 'predefined and objective criteria', and the near-synonym just shows how closely fairness and factual grounding travel together.

3. 3
   adjective

   Judging fairly, without being swayed by strong feelings or personal bias.

   Jurors must remain objective despite emotionally charged testimony.

   A reviewer should stay objective, setting aside any dislike of the author.

   Similarunbiased, impartial, neutral, fair, dispassionate

   Oppositesubjective, biased, partial

4. 4
   adjective

   Relating to a material object or to actual existence and reality, independent of the mind.

   The debate centered on whether moral values have any objective reality.

   Idealists deny that the world has an objective existence apart from perception.

   Oppositesubjective

   Note

   The sense closest to the word's makeup: object plus -ive, reaching English as Middle English obgectyf through Middle French objectif and Medieval Latin obiectīvus. The object here is the thing out in the world, so the word marks what is real whether or not anyone perceives it. It pairs naturally with reality and existence, and it is the sense at stake when people ask whether values are objective.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A material thing that has actual physical existence.

   A materialist counts only an objective, a thing with mass and shape, as fully real.

   He drew a sharp line between mental images and the objectives they stand for.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   The lens or lenses in a microscope, camera, or other optical device that sit closest to the thing being viewed.

   The microscope's objective magnified the sample forty times.

   He cleaned each objective before mounting the slide.

   Note

   Optics names its lenses by what they face: the objective sits at the object end, opposite the eyepiece. The full form is objective lens, and the short noun is the everyday term among microscope and camera users. The objective forms the first image, which the eyepiece or sensor then magnifies, so much of an instrument's quality depends on it.

7. 7
   adjective

   Relating to a noun or pronoun that functions as the object of a verb.

   The objective case marks pronouns like 'whom' and 'them'.

   Many languages distinguish subjective and objective forms of their nouns.

   Oppositesubjective

   Note

   A grammarian's adjective that rarely stands without a noun after it: objective case, objective form, objective pronoun. In English the case survives chiefly in pronouns such as him, her, them and whom. H. L. Mencken's The American Language (1921) plays on this when he notes that American adds them as a third demonstrative pronoun, alongside its ordinary work as an objective personal pronoun.

8. 8
   noun

   The grammatical case used for a noun or pronoun functioning as the object of a verb or preposition.

   English marks the objective on pronouns such as 'him' and 'them'.

   Latin grammarians would map this role onto the accusative rather than the objective.

   Note

   Shorthand for objective case, which grammarians also call the object case. Modern English merges the older accusative and dative into a single form, so one case label covers what other languages split in two. Latin grammar keeps the roles apart, which is why classicists speak of the accusative where descriptions of English say objective.

9. 9
   nouncountable

   A noun or pronoun appearing in the objective case, such as 'me', 'her', or 'them'.

   Each objective in the sentence answers the question 'whom?' or 'what?'.

   Editors corrected the subject pronouns that should have been objectives.

   Note

   The countable partner of the case itself. It names an individual word in that case, so it takes a plural, as in the objectives in a sentence. That plural is spelled exactly like the far commoner plural of the 'goal' noun. In practice it appears almost only in grammar teaching, where the surrounding talk of subjects and pronouns makes clear which meaning is intended.

10. 10
    adjective

    Relating to a verb conjugation that marks the object or patient of an action, as described for languages such as Tundra Nenets.

    Tundra Nenets uses the objective conjugation when the object is definite.

    The objective paradigm differs from the subjective in its personal endings.

    Oppositesubjective

    Note

    A narrower technical use, in which the label belongs to the verb rather than to the noun's case. In Tundra Nenets the verb carries endings that agree with its object. Irina Nikolaeva's A Grammar of Tundra Nenets (2014) sets the objective conjugation against the subjective one and distinguishes forms for singular and dual objects. Outside such descriptions the term is rarely used in this sense.

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