Definition of "natural science" [natural science]

• A science, such as biology, chemistry, or physics, that deals with the objects, phenomena, or laws of nature and the physical world. (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.

• "Everything seems to have gone well at the meeting, the educational business carried [i.e. a recommendation that natural science be made a part of the curriculum in the public schools], and the anthropologers making fools of themselves in a most effectual way."
• "Before awarding all the prizes for discoveries and inventions in mathematics, philosophy and natural science to claimants throughout the wide Republic of Letters, let modest Hariot be heard and examined."
• "The only part of my professional course which really and deeply interested me was physiology, which is the mechanical engineering of living machines; and, notwithstanding that natural science has been my proper business, I am afraid there is very little of the genuine naturalist in me."