value

Etymology

From Middle English valew, value, from Old French value, feminine past participle of valoir, from Latin valēre (“be strong, be worth”), from Proto-Italic *walēō, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂welh₁- (“to be strong”).

noun

1. The quality (positive or negative) that renders something desirable or valuable.
   The Shakespearean Shylock is of dubious value in the modern world.
   United were value for their win and Rooney could have had a hat-trick before half-time, with Paul Scholes also striking the post in the second half. May 13, 2012, Alistair Magowan, “Sunderland 0-1 Man Utd”, in BBC Sport
2. (uncountable) The degree of importance given to something.
   The value of my children's happiness is second only to that of my wife.
   Okay, for the record, and this is probably obvious, those three departments do actually do things of value, assuming that you find Pell grants, mortgage insurance, low-income housing programs, the National Weather Service, the Patent and Trademark Office, and the Census Bureau to be of some value. And if it comes as news to you that that’s what those departments do, well then, hi Gary, I’m excited you’re watching the show. Uh, quick piece of advice, please stop trying to fuck mountains! Oct 16 2016, “Third Parties”, in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, season 3, episode 26, John Oliver (actor), via HBO
3. That which is valued or highly esteemed, such as one's morals, morality, or belief system.
   He does not share his parents' values.
   family values
   WikiLeaks did not cause these uprisings but it certainly informed them. The dispatches revealed details of corruption and kleptocracy that many Tunisians suspected, […]. They also exposed the blatant discrepancy between the west's professed values and actual foreign policies. 2013-06-07, Gary Younge, “Hypocrisy lies at heart of Manning prosecution”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 18
4. The amount (of money or goods or services) that is considered to be a fair equivalent for something else.
   An article may be possessed of the highest degree of utility, or power to minister to our wants and enjoyments, and may be universally made use of, without possessing exchangeable value. 1825, John Ramsay McCulloch, Principles of Political Economy
   Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too. GDP measures the total value of output in an economic territory. Its apparent simplicity explains why it is scrutinised down to tenths of a percentage point every month. 2013-08-03, “Boundary problems”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847
5. (music) The relative duration of a musical note.
   The value of a crotchet is twice that of a quaver.
6. (art) The relative darkness or lightness of a color in (a specific area of) a painting etc.
   When pigments of equal value are mixed together, the resulting color will be a darker value. This is the result of subtraction. 2006, Edith Anderson Feisner, Colour: How to Use Colour in Art and Design
   Shadows and light move very quickly when you are painting on location. Use Cobalt Blue to quickly establish the painting's values. 2010, Rose Edin, Dee Jepsen, Color Harmonies: Paint Watercolors Filled with Light
7. (mathematics, physics) Any definite numerical quantity or other mathematical object, determined by being measured, computed, or otherwise defined.
   The exact value of pi cannot be represented in decimal notation.
8. Precise meaning; import.
   the value of a word; the value of a legal instrument
   Yet that learned and diligent annotator has , in a following note , shown his sense of the value of a passage of Livy , marking , in a few words , most strongly the desolation of Italy under the Roman republic
9. (in the plural) The valuable ingredients to be obtained by treating a mass or compound; specifically, the precious metals contained in rock, gravel, etc.
   The vein carries good values.
   the values on the hanging walls
10. (obsolete) Esteem; regard.
11. (obsolete) Valour; also spelled valew.

verb

1. To estimate the value of; judge the worth of something.
   I will have the family jewels valued by a professional.
   Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too.[…]But as a foundation for analysis it is highly subjective: it rests on difficult decisions about what counts as a territory, what counts as output and how to value it. Indeed, economists are still tweaking it. 2013-08-03, “Boundary problems”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847
2. To fix or determine the value of; assign a value to, as of jewelry or art work.
3. To regard highly; think much of; place importance upon.
   Gold was valued highly among the Romans.
4. To hold dear.
   I value these old photographs.