Definition: Conservation

From New World Encyclopedia
(Redirected from Conservation)

Etymology

From Old French conserver, from Latin conservare (to keep, preserve). By surface analysis, conserve + -ation.

Noun

conservation (countable and uncountable, plural conservations)

  1. The act of preserving, guarding, or protecting; the keeping (of a thing) in a safe or entire state; preservation.
  2. Wise use of natural resources.
  3. (biology) The discipline concerned with protection of biodiversity, the environment, and natural resources.
  4. (biology) Genes and associated characteristics of biological organisms that are unchanged by evolution, for example similar or identical nucleic acid sequences or proteins in different species descended from a common ancestor.
  5. (culture) The protection and care of cultural heritage, including artwork and architecture, as well as historical and archaeological artifacts.
  6. (physics) lack of change in a measurable property of an isolated physical system (conservation of energy, mass, momentum, electric charge, subatomic particles, and fundamental symmetries).

Derived terms

  • anticonservation
  • anticonservationist
  • conservational
  • conservation biology
  • conservation law
  • conservation of energy
  • conservation of mass
  • law of conservation of mass
  • soil conservation

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