Information \In`for*ma"tion\, n. [F., fr. L. informatio
representation, conception. See Inform, v. t.]
1. The act of informing, or communicating knowledge or
intelligence.
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The active informations of the intellect. --South.
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2. Any fact or set of facts, knowledge, news, or advice,
whether communicated by others or obtained by personal
study and investigation; any datum that reduces
uncertainty about the state of any part of the world;
intelligence; knowledge derived from reading, observation,
or instruction.
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Larger opportunities of information. --Rogers.
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He should get some information in the subject he
intends to handle. --Swift.
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3. (Law) A proceeding in the nature of a prosecution for some
offense against the government, instituted and prosecuted,
really or nominally, by some authorized public officer on
behalf of the government. It differs from an indictment in
criminal cases chiefly in not being based on the finding
of a grand jury. See Indictment.
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4. (Information Theory) A measure of the number of possible
choices of messages contained in a symbol, signal,
transmitted message, or other information-bearing object;
it is usually quantified as the negative logarithm of the
number of allowed symbols that could be contained in the
message; for logarithms to the base 2, the measure
corresponds to the unit of information, the hartley, which
is log210, or 3.323 bits; called also information
content. The smallest unit of information that can be
contained or transmitted is the bit, corresponding to a
yes-or-no decision.
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5. (Computers) Useful facts, as contrasted with raw data; as,
among all this data, there must be some interesting
information.
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