Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Organic \Or*gan"ic\, a. [L. organicus, Gr. ?: cf. F. organique.]
   1. (Biol.) Of or pertaining to an organ or its functions, or
      to objects composed of organs; consisting of organs, or
      containing them; as, the organic structure of animals and
      plants; exhibiting characters peculiar to living
      organisms; as, organic bodies, organic life, organic
      remains. Cf. {Inorganic}.

   2. Produced by the organs; as, organic pleasure. [R.]

   3. Instrumental; acting as instruments of nature or of art to
      a certain destined function or end. [R.]

            Those organic arts which enable men to discourse and
            write perspicuously.                  --Milton.

   4. Forming a whole composed of organs. Hence: Of or
      pertaining to a system of organs; inherent in, or
      resulting from, a certain organization; as, an organic
      government; his love of truth was not inculcated, but
      organic.

   5. Pertaining to, or denoting, any one of the large series of
      substances which, in nature or origin, are connected with
      vital processes, and include many substances of artificial
      production which may or may not occur in animals or
      plants; -- contrasted with {inorganic}.

   Note: The principles of organic and inorganic chemistry are
         identical; but the enormous number and the completeness
         of related series of organic compounds, together with
         their remarkable facility of exchange and substitution,
         offer an illustration of chemical reaction and homology
         not to be paralleled in inorganic chemistry.

   {Organic analysis} (Chem.), the analysis of organic
      compounds, concerned chiefly with the determination of
      carbon as carbon dioxide, hydrogen as water, oxygen as the
      difference between the sum of the others and 100 per cent,
      and nitrogen as free nitrogen, ammonia, or nitric oxide;
      -- formerly called ultimate analysis, in distinction from
      proximate analysis.

   {Organic chemistry}. See under {Chemistry}.

   {Organic compounds}. (Chem.) See {Carbon compounds}, under
      {Carbon}.

   {Organic description of a curve} (Geom.), the description of
      a curve on a plane by means of instruments. --Brande & C.

   {Organic disease} (Med.), a disease attended with morbid
      changes in the structure of the organs of the body or in
      the composition of its fluids; -- opposed to {functional
      disease}.

   {Organic electricity}. See under {Electricity}.

   {Organic} {law or laws}, a law or system of laws, or
      declaration of principles fundamental to the existence and
      organization of a political or other association; a
      constitution.

   {Organic stricture} (Med.), a contraction of one of the
      natural passages of the body produced by structural
      changes in its walls, as distinguished from a spasmodic
      stricture, which is due to muscular contraction.