posture
/ˈpɒst͡ʃə/US/ˈpɑst͡ʃɚ/
posture noun: the way a person holds and positions their body.
Noun
posture (countable and uncountable, plural postures)
- The way a person holds and positions their body.
- As if that whatsoever god who leads him
Were slily crept into his human powers,
And gave him graceful posture.c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]... - […] walking in a most dejected posture, without a band, unbraced, his arms a-cross his open breast, and his eyes bent to the floor;a. 1689, Aphra Behn, Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister
- As if that whatsoever god who leads him
- A situation or condition.
- Even as I was reading these fables of my millions, there lay on the desk before me a statement of the exact posture of my affairs […]1905, David Graham Phillips, The Deluge
- Uncle Jim stopped amazed. His brain did not instantly rise to the new posture of things.1910, H.G. Wells, The History of Mr Polly
- One's attitude or the social or political position one takes towards an issue or another person.
- ...that is, their Forts, Garrisons, and Guns upon the Frontiers of their Kingdomes; and continuall Spyes upon their neighbours; which is a posture of War.1651, Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
- But it is not true, no sane person can call it true, that man as a whole in his general attitude towards the world, in his posture towards death or green fields, towards the weather or the baby, will be wise to cultivate dissatisfaction.1912, G.K. Chesterton, A Miscellany of Men
- The position of someone or something relative to another; position; situation.
- The Moon beheld in any posture, in respect of the Sun and us, sheweth us its superficies ... always equally clear.1661, Thomas Salusbury (translator), Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World
- As for the guides, they were debarred from the pleasure of discourse, the one being placed in the van, and the other obliged to bring up the rear.
In this posture they travelled many hours, till they came into a wide and well-beaten road […]1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC
Verb
posture (third-person singular simple present postures, present participle posturing, simple past and past participle postured)
- To put one's body into a posture or series of postures, especially hoping that one will be noticed and admired.
- If you're finished posturing in front of the mirror, can I use the bathroom now?
- To pretend to have an opinion or a conviction.
- The politicians couldn't really care less about the issue: they're just posturing for the media.
- But these plays allow us to look beyond the posturing, punditry and angry speechifying, to really feel the painful, inescapable hardships of daily life as it is lived by increasing numbers of Americans.2016 September 3, Charles Isherwood, “Anxious Dramas for the Age of Trump and Sanders”, in The New York Times
- To place in a particular position or attitude; to pose.
- to posture oneself; to posture a model
- As pointed Diamonds being set, Cast greater lustre out of Jet, Those peeces we esteem most rare, Which in night shadows postur'd are.1655, James Howell, Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ. Familiar Letters Domestic and Forren. […], 3rd edition, volume (please specify the page), London: […] Humphrey Mos[e]ley, […], →OCLC
posture meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Telugu
posture in Tamil
- கொண்ணிலை, தோற்ற அமைவு, நிலை, தோரணை, மிடுக்கு, நிலைகோடல்
posture in Urdu
- آسن, ادا, کیفیت, طرز, ٹھاٹ, وضع
posture in Bengali
- শরীরের ভঙ্গি, অবস্থান
posture in Telugu
- position of body
- భంగిమ bhaṅgima
More languagesFewer languages
- posture in Malayalam
- നില്പ്, കിടപ്പ്, അംഗവിന്യാസം, നടപ്പുരീതി
- posture in Kannada
- ನಿಲುವು, ತೋರ್ಕೆ
- posture in Odia
- ଭଙ୍ଗୀ, ଭଙ୍ଗୀକରଣ, ଭଙ୍ଗିମା
- posture in Nepali
- पोस्चर, पोस्चर गर्न
- posture in Arabic
- وَضْعِيَّة waḍʕiyya
Examples of posture in a sentence
- Rise, sir, from this semi-recumbent posture.1895, Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest […] , [Act I]:
- Belarusian officials continue to posture military strength amid the ongoing Ukrainian incursion into Kursk Oblast, Russia.2024 August 16, Kateryna Stepanenko, Christina Harward, Riley Bailey, Angelica Evans, Frederick W. Kagan, “Russian Offensive Campaign...
Forms of posture
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | postures |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | postures |
| present participle | posturing |
| past participle | postured |
| past | postured |
Origin of posture
Borrowed from Middle French posture, from Italian postura, from Latin positūra (“position, situation”). Doublet of positura.
Words formed from posture
Phrases with posture
Questions about posture
- What does posture mean?
- Posture means the way a person holds and positions their body.
- What is posture in Tamil?
- Posture in Tamil is கொண்ணிலை, தோற்ற அமைவு, நிலை. See Posture meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use posture in a sentence?
- Rise, sir, from this semi-recumbent posture.
- What part of speech is posture?
- Posture can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce posture?
- Posture is pronounced /ˈpɒst͡ʃə/ (UK).
- What is the plural of posture?
- The plural of posture is postures.
Words near posture in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: posture (page history and authors); posture (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); posture (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); posture (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); posture (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); posture (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); posture (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); posture (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-posture.wav.
Cite this entry: “posture.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/posture. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.