Definition of: universal

(y′nə·vûr′səl) adjective
1. Prevalent or common everywhere or among all things or persons specified or implied: a universal belief; universal suffrage; a universal language.
2. Of or including everyone: a universal church.
3. Applicable to all cases: a universal law; universal cure.
4. Accomplished or interested in a vast variety of subjects or activities: Leonardo da Vinci was a universal genius.
5. Of, pertaining to, or occuring throughout the universe: a universal being.
6. Mech. Adapted or adaptable to a great variety of uses, shapes, etc., as certain machines or machine parts.
7. Logic a Including all the individuals of a class or genus; generic. b In a proposition, predicable of all the individuals denoted by the subject: opposed to particular: “All men are mortal” is a universal proposition. See synonyms under COMMON, GENERAL.
—noun
1. Logic a A universal proposition. b One of the five predicables, that is, genus, species, difference, property, and accident, known collectively as the universals. c A general or abstract concept considered as having absolute reality or mental or nominal existence.
2. Any general or universal notion or idea.
3. A metaphysical being which preserves its identity in spite of the changes through which it passes, as the ego. [<OF <L universalis <universus. See UNIVERSE.]
—u′ni·ver′sal·ly adverb
—u′ni·ver′sal·ness noun