Definition of "effect" []

• Something brought about by a cause or agent; a result. (noun)
• The power to produce an outcome or achieve a result; influence: The drug had an immediate effect on the pain. The government's action had no effect on the trade imbalance. (noun)
• A scientific law, hypothesis, or phenomenon: the photovoltaic effect. (noun)
• Advantage; avail: used her words to great effect in influencing the jury. (noun)
• The condition of being in full force or execution: a new regulation that goes into effect tomorrow. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "So it is deemed better to classify in accordance with the function or effect it is known a means _must_ perform or accomplish than in accordance with the _object_ with respect to which an act or acts are directed or in accordance with some _effect_ which may or may not result."
• "An effect being _defined_ as something subsequent to its cause, obviously we can have no _effect_ upon the past."
• "The Cause of any event, then, when exactly ascertainable, has five marks: it is (quantitatively) _equal_ to the effect, and (qualitatively) _the immediate, unconditional, invariable antecedent of the effect_."