[ar.gu.ment] n [ME, fr. MF, fr. L argumentum, fr. arguere] (14c) 1 obs: an outward sign: indication
2. a: a reason given in proof or rebuttal b: discourse intended to persuade 3 a: the act or process of arguing: argumentation b: a coherent series of statements leading from a premise to a conclusion c: quarrel, disagreement
4: an abstract or summary esp. of a literary work "a later editor added an ~ to the poem"
5: the subject matter esp. of a literary work
6. a: one of the independent variables upon whose value that of a function depends b: a substantive (as the direct object of a transitive verb) that is required by a predicate in grammar c: the angle assigned to a complex number when it is plotted in a complex plane using polar coordinates--called also amplitude--compare absolute value
2.