global, a.
(ˈgləʊbəl)
[f. globe n. + -al1.]
1. Spherical, globular. rare.
| 1676 R. Dixon Nat. 2 Test. 2, I could challenge the best Mathematician..to demonstrate..that they can so much as..frame a Global Circle without the least gibbosity or concavity therein. 1848 Lond. Mag. 119 According to the modern System..there is no Upper nor Under, the Earth being global. |
2. [After Fr. global.] Pertaining to or embracing the totality of a number of items, categories, etc.; comprehensive, all-inclusive, unified; total; spec. pertaining to or involving the whole world; world-wide; universal.
| 1892 Harper's Mag. Sept. 492/2 M. de Vogüé loves travel; he goes to the East and to the West for colors and ideas; his interests are as wide as the universe; his ambition, to use a word of his own, is to be ‘global’. 1927 Contemp. Rev. Aug. 241 The essence of the American proposal therefore was its ‘global’ criterion. 1928 Times 1 Oct. 14/1 The proposal for a readjustment of tonnage proportions within the global limits originally proposed by the United States. Ibid., The original French proposal was for global tonnage. 1928 John o' London's 24 Nov. 252/1 Adding figures of commerce and foreign investments..so as to show to-day's global contacts. 1943 Air Force Feb. 22 (title) Guides for global war. Ibid., In this global war they [sc. maps] are vital to airmen. 1943 Ann. Reg. 1942 283 The hard lesson of modern global warfare. 1944 Amer. Speech XIX. 137 Its extremely healthy global attitude (‘Linguistic isolationism..will be regarded as..outmoded and ridiculous..’). 1946 J. S. Huxley Unesco i. 8 A scientific world humanism, global in extent and evolutionary in background. 1948 Ann. Reg. 1947 14 The global sum of {pstlg}300 million looked like the result of bargaining with the Treasury. 1951 Sun (Baltimore) 7 Jan. 2/6 American ‘global bombers’—giant B-36's which can carry an atom bomb 10,000 miles. 1952 Brit. Jrnl. Psychol. May 101 There are..other and more satisfactory objective methods for investigating..the temperamental and general behavioural traits... A ‘global’ picture can be obtained from the use of such techniques as Rorschach or T.A.T. 1957 Economist 12 Oct. (Suppl.) 17, 10 days of global cruising. 1959 P. H. Spaak Why Nato? iv. 30 The allies could only meet the global challenge of the Soviet Union with a global retort. 1970 Sci. Jrnl. Apr. 52/3 The meteorological global telecommunications system required poses a second major problem in the development of an effective system of global numerical weather prediction. |
b. global village, a term popularized by M. McLuhan (1911–80) for the world in the age of high technology and international communications, through which events throughout the world may be experienced simultaneously by everyone, so apparently 'shrinking' world societies to the level of a single village or tribe; also in extended use.
| 1960 Carpenter & McLuhan Explorations in Communication p. xi, Postliterate man's electronic media contract the world to a village or tribe where everything happens to everyone at the same time: everyone knows about, and therefore participates in, everything that is happening the minute it happens. Television gives this quality of simultaneity to events in the global village. 1962 M. McLuhan Gutenberg Galaxy 31 The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village. 1967 Punch 4 Oct. 520/1 Howdy neighbour, how're things over in your corner of the global village? Wife and audio-tactile kids okay? 1968 McLuhan & Fiore (title) War and peace in the global village. 1970 Sat. Rev. 24 Oct. 19/2 There are no boundaries in a global village. All problems will become so intimate as to be one's own. 1980 Jrnl. R. Soc. Arts June 437/1 In the ‘global village’ which..the mass media in particular have made of the world there is a temptation to see everything in global terms. 1986 R. Ford Sportswriter vi. 152 She told me about..her theories of Abstract Expressionism, the global village, and a Great Books course. |
Hence ˈglobalism, internationalism; globaliˈzation, the act of globalizing; ˈglobalize v. trans., to render global; so globalized ppl. adj.
| 1959 Economist 4 Apr. 65/1 Italy's ‘globalised quota’ for imports of cars has been increased. 1961 Webster, Globalism... Globalization. 1962 Spectator 5 Oct. 495 Globalisation is, indeed, a staggering concept. 1962 Sunday Times 28 Jan. 12/2 Our own comparatively timid intentions towards globalising the Common Market. 1965 Economist 23 Jan. 316/1 Between globalism and isolationism there is extensive middle ground. |
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Sense 2 b in Dict. becomes 3. Add: [2.] b. Computing. Pertaining to or affecting the whole of a program, text, etc.; esp. in global search, a search through the whole of a computer file, or for every occurrence of an item; global variable, a variable accessible to and used by various parts or modules of a program.
| 1964 R. Baumann et al. Introd. Algol 43 Other quantities declared in dominant blocks can appear in a subordinate block; these quantities are said to be non-local or global relative to the subordinate block. 1967 Bates & Douglas Programming Language: One viii. 234 Internal procedures, i.e., procedures contained within other procedures, may also contain local and global identifiers. 1969 J. E. Sammet Programming Languages iv. 187 Global variables are those defined only in the outermost block. 1971 Information Sci. Oct. 351 A global search was executed at an early stage of learning. 1979 Personal Computer World Nov. 69 (Advt.), Edit facilities include global search and replace. 1984 Which Micro? Dec. 30/3 They are usually global commands which affect all aspects of the text. 1986 What Micro? Nov. 51/1 More complicated operations can be assigned to a single key by using the Library's ‘global macros’ facility. |
3. Special Comb. global warming, a long-term gradual increase in the earth's temperature, thought to be caused by various side-effects of modern energy consumption such as the augmented greenhouse effect.
| 1977 Economist 4 June 89/1 Even a doubling of carbon dioxide could be serious: a *global warming of nearly three degrees centigrade, and possibly over eleven degrees in parts of the Arctic. 1982 Science CCXV. 1611/2 It has been suggested..that global warming..could melt the marine West Antarctic ice sheet, raising the global sea level 5 to 6 m. 1984 Technol. Rev. May 50/2 Other ‘greenhouse gases’ contribute to global warming. Some of them, such as carbon monoxide and nitric oxide, also result from the combustion of fossil fuels. 1989 Nature 11 May 84/2 A Senate resolution calling on the United States to take the lead in setting up an international convention to slow global warming. |
ˈglobalist n. and a., (a person or organization) adopting or advocating an awareness of global issues, or a global approach to economic or foreign policy.
| 1953 Britannica Bk. of Year 639/1 Globalist, one believing in the world-wide distribution of U.S. troops as a defence against Communism. 1977 New Yorker 16 May 92/1 Globalist and Wilsonian rhetoric is the conventional language of official American discourse on world affairs. 1980 New Age (U.S.) Oct. 42/1 Mollison, an Australian ‘globalist’..has spent years developing a methodology for producing food, raw materials for clothing, energy, lumber, and anything else a community would need from resources available to them in their local environment. |
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▸ global distillation n. a natural process driven by atmospheric circulation, in which certain volatile, mostly man-made substances vaporize in warmer climates and condense in cooler air (such as at higher altitudes and latitudes, or over the oceans), causing the accumulation of specific pollutants in the latter.
| 1975E. D. Goldberg in Proc. Royal Soc. (B.) 189 286 The transfer from land [of vaporized DDT] with a subsequent rainout to the global ocean following transport in the wind system thus becomes a ‘*global distillation process’. 1993 Independent (Nexis) 24 Jan. 55 Scientists fear the chemicals, used as pesticides and in industry, are evaporating from the soils, waste dumps and polluted lakes of Europe and North America, and condensing on to the snow and ice of the Arctic. Toronto University's Frank Wania calls the process ‘global distillation’. 2000 Reuters Features Digest (Electronic ed.) 9 Apr. The sub-zero temperatures around the Alpine peaks caused DDT, which evaporates over Africa or India, to humidify and fall as precipitation in a process known as ‘global distillation’. |
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▸ Global Positioning System n. a worldwide navigation system which allows users to determine their location very precisely by means of receiving equipment that detects timed radio signals from a network of satellites in stable, predictable orbits; (also) a receiver for this system; abbreviated GPS.
| 1973 Aviation Week 26 Nov. 49/3 The Pentagon official said..the *Global Positioning System's ‘need will be justified solely on the basis of its military value’. 1983 N. A. Chagnon Yanomamö (1992) ii. 102, I used, for the first time, what are called GPS (global positioning systems) instruments—small, hand-held instruments that receive signals from a network of satellites launched by the U.S. Department of Defense in the past several years. 1994 Onset Oct.–Nov. 16/4 Pack Micrologic's Sportsman Global Positioning System (GPS) in your rucksack. A hand-held, water-resistant navigation unit, this device can be used by boaters, trailblazers and tourists alike. 2006 Metro (Toronto) 13 Sept. 22 (caption) The adventure tourism activity uses global positioning system devices..to find out-of-the-way locales. |