declaration

plural declarations

1. countableuncountableAn emphatic or formal act of saying, telling or asserting something, by speech or writing; a decisive assertion or proclamation.

   The weather was not tempting enough to draw the two others from their pencil and their book, in spite of Marianne's declaration that the day would be lastingly fair […].

   1811, Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

   Synonyms: avowal, notice, statement

2. archaiccountableuncountableSpecifically, a declaration of love.

   I went to Miss Mills's, fraught with a declaration.

   1850, Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

   1 more example

   He blushed a great deal when the others chaffed him for his obvious preference. He made the first declaration in his life to Fräulein Hedwig, but unfortunately it was an accident […].

   1915, W. Somerset Maugham, chapter 23, in Of Human Bondage

3. countableuncountableA list of items for various legal purposes, e.g. customs declaration.

   Synonyms: notice, statement

4. countableuncountableThe act or process of declaring.

   Synonyms: notice, profession

5. countableuncountableball gamesThe act, by the captain of a batting side, of declaring an innings closed.
6. countableuncountablelawIn common law, the formal document specifying plaintiff's cause of action, including the facts necessary to sustain a proper cause of action, and to advise the defendant of the grounds upon which he is being sued.
7. countableuncountablecomputingThe specification of an object, such as a variable or function, establishing its existence but not necessarily describing its contents.