The noun universe has 3 senses (first 1 from tagged texts)
1. (13) universe, existence, creation, world, cosmos, macrocosm -- (everything that exists anywhere; "they study the evolution of the universe"; "the biggest tree in existence")
2. population, universe -- ((statistics) the entire aggregation of items from which samples can be drawn; "it is an estimate of the mean of the population")
3. universe, universe of discourse -- (everything stated or assumed in a given discussion)