Definition of "frame of reference" [frame of reference]

• A set of coordinate axes in terms of which position or movement may be specified or with reference to which physical laws may be mathematically stated. Also called reference frame. (noun)
• A set of ideas, as of philosophical or religious doctrine, in terms of which other ideas are interpreted or assigned meaning. (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.

• "When Truman, Acheson, Kennan, and Marshall sat down to design the architecture of the post-World War II order, their frame of reference was the competition between the great powers that had dominated the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries."
• "And Prane and Chadless seemed to have moved theatre semantics into another frame of reference entirely."
• "Most of Spartacuss life had unfolded on the broad plains and winding hills of the Balkans but now his frame of reference was no wider than the walls of Vatias establishment, with occasional glimpses of Capua."