Other forms: postures, posturing
Your posture is the way you hold your body — the line of your back, neck and shoulders when you stand or sit. A soldier's straight spine, the slow slump over a laptop by four in the afternoon, a grandmother saying sit up straight.
It goes with good, poor, upright and terrible: good posture, terrible posture at that desk all day. In yoga a posture is a single pose held for a while, and a dancer's posture takes years to train. Figuratively, a posture is the attitude a country, company or person takes up in public — a defensive posture, a negotiating posture — and the verb to posture means striking an attitude you do not really hold: he is posturing for the cameras. In the body sense it is uncountable: you have good posture, not a good posture. The medical adjective is postural, as in postural pain.
1nounpostureThe way a person holds their body when standing or sitting.
“Years of carrying that bag ruined his posture.”
2nounparticularA particular position the body is held in.
“She moved slowly from one posture to the next.”
3nounattitudeThe attitude a person or group takes up in public.
“The company adopted a defensive posture after the report.”
4verbbehaveTo behave in a way meant to impress rather than sincere.
“They were posturing for the cameras instead of negotiating.”
posture is a way of holding the body.
Posture came through Middle French from Italian postura, on Latin positūra, 'position, situation'. In Latin it was about where a thing had been placed. English narrowed it to one thing in particular: where a person places their own body, hour after hour, without noticing.
Latin
positūra — position, situation
Italian
postura
Middle French
posture
English, today
posture
Middle French posture, from Italian postura, from Latin positūra (“position, situation”). a doublet of positura.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Body & Health, A Man Called Ove, Body Language & Gestures, Dance
First appears in chapter 3 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word