{
  "id": "stuff.material",
  "term": "stuff",
  "sense": "material",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 2,
  "arena": "common",
  "domain": "everyday",
  "style": null,
  "definition": "things that are matter and remain in space through time",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "matter.substance",
      "space.extent",
      "time.dimension",
      "persist.continue"
    ],
    "interaction": "Matter persists in space across time, forming entities that endure.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "enduring presence",
      "spatiotemporal continuity",
      "persistent identity"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "The USS Enterprise (CVN-65) remained afloat and operational for 51 years despite constant exposure to saltwater and combat conditions.",
      "domain": "engineering"
    },
    {
      "text": "Mount Everest's rock and ice mass has persisted in the Himalayas for over 60 million years while tectonic plates continue to shift beneath it.",
      "domain": "geology"
    },
    {
      "text": "The Bitcoin blockchain, once written, retains transaction data across thousands of nodes without degradation since its 2009 inception.",
      "domain": "computing"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [],
  "used_by": [
    "cash.economic",
    "clothing.apparel",
    "fur.material",
    "package.container",
    "shoes.clothing"
  ],
  "forms": [
    "stuff",
    "stuffed",
    "stuffing",
    "stuffs"
  ],
  "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": "components",
      "note": "Added 'persist.continue' to components since the definition implies continuity through time, which is not entailed by 'matter.substance', 'space.extent', and 'time.dimension' alone."
    }
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-stuff.material"
}