What is "ie"

abbr. ''See'' '''i.e.'''

adv. that is to say; in other words [syn: i.e., id est, that is]

The ie is a Japanese term which translates directly to household. It can mean either a physical home or refer to a family’s lineage. It is popularly used as the “ traditional” family structure. The physical definition of an ie consists of an estate that includes a house, rice paddies and vegetable gardens, and its own section in the local cemetery. The symbolic definition of ie has been referred to as the cultural medium for the physical processes of kinship, such as mating and procreation. The symbolic ie refers not only to blood lines, however, but also to economic and socioreligious functions that take place within the family

Ie, ie or IE may refer to:

Ie (家, lit. "house") were pre-modern Japanese trading houses and precursors to the modern zaibatsu and keiretsu. They first emerged in the mid-18th century, and shared many features with the Western concept of cottage industry. The ie operated on a system very similar to what economists today call the " Putting-Out system" or "workshop system." City-based merchants would provide rural producers with raw materials and equipment, and would then sell the final product in the cities.

This level of organization to production, with one trading house (in effect, one company) controlling production, transportation, and sales, was unprecedented in Japan, and can easily been seen as the forerunner to the factory system, economic and industrial modernization, and the rise of the zaibatsu (Japanese monopolies). One of the key differences, organizationally, however, between the ie and the zaibatsu which would come later is that the ie always focused on producing and selling only one or two types of goods; so-called "horizontal zaibatsu" would seek to deal in many unrelated types of goods. For example, today, Mitsubishi is both an automobile company and a bank.

Two of the ie, originally founded by merchants in the early 17th century, survive today as Mitsui and Sumitomo, both major modern Japanese corporations.

Ie or Iota (asomtavruli , nuskhuri , mkhedruli ჲ) is the 15th letter of the three Georgian scripts.

In the system of Georgian numerals it has a value of 60. Now obsolete in Georgian language.