Other forms: resolutions
Resolution is how much fine detail an image actually holds. High resolution, screen resolution, the resolution is too low.
It is measured in pixels for screens and in dots per inch for print, and more pixels only help if the detail was captured in the first place — enlarging a small image adds pixels and no resolution. The other main senses are a firm decision — a New Year's resolution, pass a resolution — and the settling of a dispute: the resolution of the conflict. Note resolve, and resolute.
1nounresolutionHow much fine detail an image holds.
“Photos taken with the new camera have a much higher resolution.”
2nounfirmA firm decision, or a formal one passed by a body.
“The United Nations passed a resolution calling for an end to the fighting.”
3nounsettlingThe settling of a dispute.
“Resolution took roughly eleven years.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
resolution is detail, or a settling.
Latin resolutio means a loosening or unbinding, from resolvere — re- plus solvere, to loosen, the same verb as in solve and dissolve. Resolving a dispute and resolving an image are both untying a tangle.
Proto-Indo-European
*lewh₃-
Latin
resolūtiō — a loosening, solution
Anglo-Norman
resolucion
Middle English
resolucioun — dissolution
English, today
resolution
Built from
Recorded since 1412, as Middle English resolucioun (“dissolution”), either from Anglo-Norman resolucion or directly from Latin resolūtiō (“a loosening, solution”), from resolvō (“to loosen”), itself from the intensive prefix re- + solvō. By surface analysis, recognizably related to resolve and -tion.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA