{
  "id": "material.physical",
  "term": "material",
  "sense": "physical",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 5,
  "arena": "material",
  "domain": "physical",
  "style": null,
  "definition": "a thing that is a pattern of energy in a place through time and can be an object",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "matter.substance",
      "structure.arrangement",
      "energy.capacity",
      "pattern.regularity",
      "space.extent",
      "time.dimension",
      "object.entity"
    ],
    "interaction": "the pattern of energy occupies space and has extent",
    "novel_properties": [
      "persistent bounded form",
      "spatiotemporal continuity",
      "emergent stability"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "The International Space Station maintains structural integrity despite micrometeoroid impacts and thermal cycling in low Earth orbit.",
      "domain": "engineering"
    },
    {
      "text": "A snowflake retains its hexagonal symmetry for minutes before melting at sea level on a winter day.",
      "domain": "physics"
    },
    {
      "text": "The USS Enterprise (CVN-65) operated as a coherent warship for 51 years until decommissioned in 2017.",
      "domain": "institutions"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "substance.material",
      "note": "is-a",
      "type": "is-a"
    },
    {
      "id": "products.goods",
      "note": "enables",
      "type": "enables"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [
    "bar.structure",
    "blue.color",
    "board.material",
    "box.container",
    "card.paper",
    "glass.material",
    "gold.metal",
    "key.tool",
    "paper.material",
    "park.place",
    "print.material",
    "shoes.clothing",
    "sponsored.financial",
    "table.furniture",
    "thread.material",
    "tools.tool",
    "toys.play",
    "transparent.visual",
    "windows.opening"
  ],
  "forms": [
    "material",
    "materials"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "openrouter:openai/gpt-oss-120b",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.6,
    "reconciled": {
      "by": "openrouter:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
      "date": "2026-07-31",
      "changed": "factual",
      "note": "Definition was factually incomplete as it leaned on unlisted foundational concepts. Components updated to include all constitutive concepts: energy, pattern, space, time, structure, substance, and obj"
    }
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-material.physical"
}