Definition of "issue"

issue

/ˈɪsjuː/

noun
plural issues
1. The action or an instance of flowing or coming out, an outflow, particularly:
  1. (military, obsolete) A movement of soldiers towards an enemy, a sortie.
  2. (medicine) The outflow of a bodily fluid, particularly (now rare) in abnormal amounts.
    Quotations
    And behold, a woman which was diseased with an issue of blood twelue yeeres, came behinde him [Jesus], and touched the hemme of his garment.
    1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Matthew 9:20
2. Someone or something that flows out or comes out, particularly:
  1. (medicine, now rare) The bodily fluid drained through a natural or artificial issue.
    Quotations
    For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.
    1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Ezekiel 23:20
  2. (now usually historical or law) Offspring: one's natural child or children.
  3. (figuratively) Progeny: all one's lineal descendants.
  4. (figuratively, obsolete) A race of people considered as the descendants of some common ancestor.
  5. (now rare) The produce or income derived from farmland or rental properties.
  6. (historical or rare law) Income derived from fines levied by a court or law-enforcement officer; the fines themselves.
  7. (obsolete) The entrails of a slaughtered animal.
  8. (rare and obsolete) Any action or deed performed by a person.
  9. (obsolete) Luck considered as the favor or disfavor of nature, the gods, or God.
  10. (publishing) A single edition of a newspaper or other periodical publication.
  11. (publishing) a single printing of a particular edition of a work when contrasted with other print runs.
  12. (figuratively, originally World War I military slang, usually with definite article) The entire set of something; all of something.
  13. (finance) Any financial instrument issued by a company.
  14. The loan of a book etc. from a library to a patron; all such loans by a given library during a given period.
3. The means or opportunity by which something flows or comes out, particularly:
  1. (obsolete) A sewer.
4. The place where something flows or comes out, an outlet, particularly:
  1. (obsolete) An exit from a room or building.
    Quotations
    How if there were no centre at all, but just one alley after another, and the whole world a labyrinth without end or issue?
    1881, Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque
  2. (now rare) A confluence: the mouth of a river; the outlet of a lake or other body of water.
5. The action or an instance of sending something out, particularly:
  1. (historical medicine) A small incision, tear, or artificial ulcer, used to drain fluid and usually held open with a pea or other small object.
    Quotations
    Issues and fontanels were supposed remedies for joint diseases, pulmonary tuberculosis, and other chronic conditions.
    2005, James Harold Kirkup, chapter XXV, in The Evolution of Surgical Instruments, page 403
  2. The production or distribution of something for general use.
  3. The distribution of something (particularly rations or standardized provisions) to someone or some group.
  4. (finance) The action or an instance of a company selling bonds, stock, or other securities.
6. Any question or situation to be resolved, particularly:
  1. (law) A point of law or fact in dispute or question in a legal action presented for resolution by the court.
  2. (figuratively) Anything in dispute, an area of disagreement whose resolution is being debated or decided.
  3. (rare and obsolete) A dispute between two alternatives, a dilemma.
  4. (US, originally psychology, usually in the plural) A psychological or emotional difficulty, (now informal, figurative and usually euphemistic) any problem or concern considered as a vague and intractable difficulty.
7. The action or an instance of concluding something, particularly:
  1. (obsolete) The end of any action or process.
  2. (obsolete) The end of any period of time.
8. The end result of an event or events, any result or outcome, particularly:
  Quotations
  The eternal happiness or misery of the departed saint depended on the issue of this contest between the powers of good and evil for the possession of his mortal remains.
  1911, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 9, page 176
  1. (now rare) The result of a discussion or negotiation, an agreement.
  2. (obsolete) The result of an investigation or consideration, a conclusion.
9. (figurative, now rare) The action or an instance of feeling some emotion.
10. (figurative, now rare) The action or an instance of leaving any state or condition.
verb
third-person singular simple present issues, present participle issuing, simple past and past participle issued
1. To flow out, to proceed from, to come out or from.
  Quotations
  ...thy sons that shall issue from thee...
  1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], 2 Kings xx:18
  There was a very light off-shore wind and scarcely any breakers, so that the approach to the shore was continued without finding bottom; yet though we were already quite close, we saw no indication of any indention in the coast from which even a tiny brooklet might issue, and certainly no mouth of a large river such as this must necessarily be to freshen the ocean even two hundred yards from shore.
  1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Land That Time Forgot Chapter IV
  A powerful current of warm breath issued at regular intervals from the profound cavity of his mouth while in rhythmic resonance the loud strong hale reverberations of his formidable heart thundered rumblingly […]
  1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 12: The Cyclops]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […]
2. To rush out, to sally forth.
3. To extend into, to open onto.
4. To turn out in a certain way, to result in.
  Quotations
  But, for Livy, Roman patriotism is overriding, and this issues, of course, in an antiquarian attention to the city's origins.
  2007, John Burrow, A History of Histories, Penguin, published 2009, page 171
5. (archaic) To end up as, to turn out being, to become as a result.
  Quotations
  And let his foes like flockes of feareful Roes,Purſude by hunters, flie his angry lookes,That I may ſee him iſſue Conquerour.
  c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, Act III, scene iii
6. (law) To come to a point in fact or law on which the parties join issue.
7. To send out; to put into circulation.
8. To deliver for use.
9. To deliver by authority.
  Quotations
  Five minutes later, Southampton tried to mount their first attack, but Wickham sabotaged the move by tripping the rampaging Nathaniel Clyne, prompting the referee, Andre Marriner, to issue a yellow card. That was a lone blemish on an otherwise tidy start by Poyet’s team – until, that is, the 12th minute, when Vergini produced a candidate for the most ludicrous own goal in Premier League history.
  2014 October 18, Paul Doyle, “Southampton hammer eight past hapless Sunderland in barmy encounter”, in The Guardian