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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

map.

A visual representation of an area, whether real or imaginary, showing the relative positions of places and other features.

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/mæp/Australia, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/map/British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales/mɛp/New-Zealand
  1. A visual representation of an area, whether real or imaginary, showing the relative positions of places and other features.

    a map of Australia, a map of Lilliput
    He bought a map for the tour of Edinburgh Castle.
  2. A graphical or logical representation of any structure or system, showing the positions of or relationships between its components.

    a map of the Earth's magnetic field
  3. A function, especially a function satisfying a certain property (e.g. continuity, linearity, etc.; see Usage notes).

  4. Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genera Araschnia (especially, Araschnia levana) and Cyrestis, having map-like markings on the wings.

  5. The face.

    UK · dated
  6. An imaginary or fictional area, often predefined and confined, where a game or a session thereof takes place.

    I don't want to play this map again!
    Jack loves playing on this Fortnite map.
  7. Synonym of associative array.

Where this word comes from

Shortening or back-formation of Middle English mappemounde, mapemounde (“world map”), from Old French mapamonde, from Medieval Latin mappa mundī, compound of Latin mappa (“napkin, cloth”) and mundus (“world”). See mop for more on the first component. Doublet of mop, nape, and nappe.

verb/mæp/Australia, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/map/British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales/mɛp/New-Zealand
  1. To represent by means of a map.

    transitive
    This large atlas maps the whole world in very great detail.
    Figure 3 maps the pressure distribution within the human circulatory system.
  2. To create a map of; to examine or survey in order to gather information for a map.

    transitive
    The team is mapping the route of the new railway line.
    The space probe is mapping the Earth's gravitational field.
  3. To have a direct relationship; to correspond.

    intransitive
    This doesn't map to my understanding of how things should work.
  4. To create a direct relationship to; to create a correspondence with.

    transitive
    Map "volume down" to the F2 key.
  5. To act as a function on something, taking it to something else.

    transitive
  6. To assign a drive letter to a shared folder.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

Shortening or back-formation of Middle English mappemounde, mapemounde (“world map”), from Old French mapamonde, from Medieval Latin mappa mundī, compound of Latin mappa (“napkin, cloth”) and mundus (“world”). See mop for more on the first component. Doublet of mop, nape, and nappe.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.