organ

Pluralorgans

Formsorgans, organing, organed

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A distinct part of a plant or animal, made up of tissues that work together to carry out a particular function.

   The liver is the largest internal organ in the human body.

   Each of the body's organs depends on a steady blood supply.

   Note

   A word for a body part that began as a word for a tool: Greek órganon meant "instrument" or "implement" before it named a part of the body or a musical instrument. That history explains why an organ is defined by its work. Its usual company shows the same idea, as in vital organs and bodily organs, and Sandeep Jauhar's Heart: a History (2018) still calls the heart "a vulnerable organ."

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A keyboard instrument that produces sound by driving air through sets of pipes, or an electronic instrument built to imitate that sound.

   The cathedral's organ has over five thousand pipes.

   He bought an electronic organ so he could practice quietly at home.

   Note

   The instrument that kept the Greek word's old meaning of simply "the instrument." When the distinction matters, pipe organ names the wind-driven original and electronic organ its imitator, while plain organ covers both. W. B. Maxwell's The Mirror and the Lamp (1918) shows its classic setting: "the swell from the great organ" rising through a vast, ancient church.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A part of an organization established to carry out particular functions.

   The press office serves as the public-facing organ of the ministry.

   Several organs within the union negotiate on behalf of the workers.

   Similararm, body, branch, agency

   Note

   A metaphor carried from the body to institutions. Just as a bodily organ is a part defined by its job, an office, committee or council becomes an organ of the larger body it serves. The word usually takes of, as in an organ of the union or the ministry's organs. It sits beside the governmental sense, which narrows the same idea to the state.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A government body, agency, or authority that exercises official functions.

   The supreme court is the highest judicial organ in the country.

   International treaties created new organs to oversee trade disputes.

   Similarbody, agency, authority, institution

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A periodical such as a magazine or newsletter that an organization publishes as its official voice.

   The party's daily newspaper served as its main organ for decades.

   Several organs of the learned society published the new guidelines.

   Similarmouthpiece, publication, journal

6. 6
   nounslangcountable

   An indirect or euphemistic term for the penis, used in place of blunter language.

   The novel's narrator described the dull ache in his organ after the fall.

   Doctors warned that the medication could reduce blood flow to his organ.

   Similarmember, penis

   Note

   Slang that works by understatement, borrowing the anatomical sense to avoid the blunt word. It usually needs a qualifier to be understood. Edward Carpenter, in Pagan and Christian Creeds (1920), writes of "the male organ" and sets it against "the female." Without that kind of context, organ alone is heard as a body part in general, so use it only where the reference is already clear.

7. 7
   nounabbreviationellipsis

   Ellipsis of organ pipe cactus.

   Botanists tagged each organ along the southern ridge for the survey.

   The organ blooms with white flowers that open only after dark.

   Note

   A clipped name for Stenocereus thurberi, a cactus widespread in Mexico, whose full name borrows the pipes of the musical instrument. The short form works only after organ pipe cactus has already been said. On its own, organ will be heard as the instrument or the body part. It counts like any noun: one organ, a stand of organs.

8. 8
   nounhistoricalcountable

   An Asian type of volley gun with multiple barrels fired in a single combined discharge.

   The garrison wheeled an organ onto the ramparts to repel the assault.

   Lieutenant Roberts was also severely wounded by a missile, or weapon called an Organ, which is composed of about thirty-six gun barrels so joined as to fire at once.

   1790, H. Compton, A particular account of the European military adventurers of Hindustan

   Note

   A historical weapon known to English readers through accounts of soldiering in India. H. Compton's account of the European military adventurers of Hindustan (1790) describes it as about thirty-six gun barrels "so joined as to fire at once." The banked barrels recall the ranks of pipes in the musical instrument. Use the word only for that historical weapon, never for modern multi-barreled guns.

Showing meanings only. Show all 10