substance

Pluralsubstances

Formssubstances, substancing, substanced

1. 1
   nouncountable

   Physical matter; the material that physical objects are made of.

   The bottle contained an oily substance with a sharp smell.

   Geologists identified the dark substance as cooled volcanic rock.

   Similarmatter, stuff

   Note

   Every sense of the word grows from a Latin image: substantia, from substō, literally "stand under," which came into English through Old French and Middle English and displaced Old English andweorc. As material it works both ways. As a mass noun it means stuff in general, as when William Temple speaks of giving "substance and form" to a statue. As a count noun it means a particular kind of stuff, as in The Economist's "energy-rich substances."

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The essential or most vital part of something; its core meaning or content.

   Critics praised the film's style but found little substance beneath it.

   The substance of the agreement was a promise to share resources.

   Similargist, crux

   Note

   Its natural home is a contrast between content and surface. Dryden's hero chose "the substance, not the appearance," and Burke calls a document insolent in words "but in substance" alarming. That phrase, in substance, means "in its essentials" and looks past manner to what is actually said. Same in substance works the same way: Thomas Burnet uses it for an edition that matches the Latin in content, if not word for word.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   An illegal drug or narcotic, taken or possessed unlawfully.

   The athlete tested positive for a banned substance before the race.

   Counselors at the center treat people recovering from substance abuse.

   Similardope, gear

   Note

   The drug meaning mostly lives inside fixed phrases. Substance abuse is the standard one, alongside controlled substance and banned substance. These qualifiers tell the reader a drug is meant rather than plain physical matter. Dope and gear are its slang equivalents. Substance is the neutral word of clinics and courts, which makes it the safe choice in formal or medical writing.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A form of matter with a constant chemical composition and characteristic properties.

   Each substance has a unique melting point that helps chemists identify it.

   Gold is an element, a substance that cannot be broken into simpler parts.

   Similarmatter, stuff

5. 5
   noununcountable

   A person's material possessions, property, and financial resources.

   A man of substance, he owned estates in three counties.

   The long war stripped the family of nearly all their substance.

   Similarwealth, means, property

   Note

   Wealth understood as standing: a man of substance has property behind him. The verb it keeps company with is waste. The King James Bible of 1611 has a son who "wasted his substance with riotous living," and Jonathan Swift's The Conduct of the Allies (1711) mourns a nation that "wasted our Strength and vital Substance." Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors even values a man's substance in marks.

6. 6
   noununcountable

   The quality of being solid, firm, and real; genuine weight or body.

   The heavy oak gave the table a sense of substance and permanence.

   The soup needed more substance, so she added beans and barley.

   Similarsolidity, body, weight

7. 7
   nouncountable or uncountable

   Essence or underlying reality; what a thing fundamentally is, beneath its outward and changing properties.

   For Aristotle, the substance of a thing is what it is in itself, not its passing qualities.

   Medieval thinkers debated whether the divine substance could be known by reason.

   Similaressence

   Note

   The philosopher's sense keeps the "stand under" image traced at the material sense most literally. Substance is what lies beneath a thing's changing qualities. It renders the Greek ousia, and in theology it overlaps with hypostasis. Its classic counterpart is accident: the qualities a thing can gain or lose while remaining what it is.

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