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Purport   /pˈərpˌɔrt/  /pərpˈɔrt/   Listen
Purport

noun
1.
The intended meaning of a communication.  Synonyms: intent, spirit.
2.
The pervading meaning or tenor.  Synonym: drift.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Purport" Quotes from Famous Books



... bowed his head the while he thought upon the purport of the message; for he never spake a hasty word, and never went back from a word once spoken. Having mused awhile he raised his head and answered, "The King Marsilius is greatly my enemy. In what manner shall ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)

... will try to finish the story. The purport is that all these things are in motion, as I was saying, and that this motion is of two kinds, a slower and a quicker; and the slower elements have their motions in the same place and with reference to things near them, and so they beget; but what is begotten is swifter, for it is carried to ...
— Theaetetus • Plato

... made answer in a voice so low that Delaherche failed to catch its purport. The Emperor, moreover, seemed not to pause to listen, drawn by some irresistible attraction to that window; at which, each time he approached it, he was greeted by that terrible salvo of artillery that rent and tore his being. His pallor ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various

... is needless to premise that my table is large enough to hold the ladies: of this they had ocular demonstration yesterday. To say how it is usually covered is rather more essential, and this shall be the purport ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge

... they had received and resolved to pusue our advise. after this council was over the principal Cheif or the broken Arm, took the flour of the roots of cows and thickened the scope in the kettles and baskets of all his people, this being ended he made a harangue the purport of which was making known the deliberations of their council and impressing the necessity of unanimity among them and a strict attention to the resolutions which had been agreed on in councill; he concluded by ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... one or two of the words were wrongly spelt; but their purport was so gentle and loving, and had such a touch of simple, respectful gratitude in them, that he could not help being drawn afresh to the little unseen sister-in-law, whose acquaintance Osborne had made by helping her to ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... who has studied phallic and solar worship in the East could make any mistake as to the purport of the shrine at Stonehenge... yet the indelicacy of the whole subject often so shocks the ordinary reader, that, in spite of facts, he cannot grant what he thinks shows so much debasement of the religious mind; facts are facts, however, and it only remains for us to account ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble

... caused all eyes to turn toward her, and the next moment there fluttered from her yardarms the signals commanding the fleet to light fires and prepare to weigh! So it had come then, that fateful moment for which we had all been waiting with bated breath, for a full week; and as the purport of the signals became known, a frenzied roar of "Banzai Nippon!" went up from ships and shore, a roar that sent a shiver of excitement thrilling through me, so deep, so intense, so indicative of indomitable determination, of courage, and of intense patriotism was it. Peal after peal of ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood

... father was only pretended, while he put on a sad countenance in the day time, but drank to great excess in the night; from which behavior, he said, the late disturbance among the multitude came, while they had an indignation thereat. And indeed the purport of his whole discourse was to aggravate Archelaus's crime in slaying such a multitude about the temple, which multitude came to the festival, but were barbarously slain in the midst of their own sacrifices; and he said there was such a vast ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus

... must be held by his achievements; he himself was as nothing beside them. Now, as he lay, he was thinking what would happen. He also had heard the doctor's story or enough of it to enable him to guess the purport of their sentence on him; he was to live as an invalid, to abandon all his ambitions, to throw away all that made people admire him or made him something in the world's eyes and something great in hers. On these terms and on these only life was offered to him now; if he refused, ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope

... exact notion of the facts, inasmuch as the word "sceptic" has passed through two phases of significance, and may still have either. In the original sense of the term, Montaigne is a good deal of a "sceptic," because the main purport of the APOLOGY OF RAYMOND SEBONDE appears to be the discrediting of human reason all round, and the consequent shaking of all certainty. And this method strikes not only indirectly but directly at the current religious beliefs; for Montaigne indicates ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson

... up like burning coals, discharging clouds of smoke and intoxicating vapor. High-sounding and vague language is interposed between the mind and objects around it; all outlines are confused and the vertigo begins. Never to the same extent have men lost the purport of outward things. Never have they been at once more blind and more chimerical. Never has their disturbed reason rendered them more tranquil concerning real danger and created more alarm at imaginary danger. Strangers with cool blood and who witness the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... exhibited all the symptoms of an invalid, with the exception of her eyes, which were not merely brilliant, but dazzling, and full of a fire that flashed from them with something like triumph whenever her attention was directed to the purport of her testimony. On this subject they saw that it; would be quite useless, and probably worse than useless, to press her, and they did not, consequently, put her to the necessity of specifying the purport ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... had just left the chamber. He was speculating as to which room they were likely to enter. They had not gone by the door convenient to passage to Kaid's own apartments. He would give much to hear the conversation between Kaid and the stranger; he was all too conscious of its purport. As he stood thinking, Kaid returned. After looking round the room for a moment, the Prince came slowly over to Nahoum, and, stretching out a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... these commands to his relations, there came letters from his ambassadors, who had been sent to Rome unto Caesar, which, when they were read, their purport was this: That Acme was slain by Caesar, out of his indignation at what hand, she had in Antipater's wicked practices; and that as to Antipater himself, Caesar left it to Herod to act as became a father and ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... perception of the incongruity and relative importance of things, be insensibly degraded into pusillanimous indifference to everything, good or bad. The soberest observer may concede that there is a spiritual energy and movement behind visible phenomena, whose purport and aim it is the province of the wise to understand. The peril of Armageddon lies in the fact that evil never fights fair, but ever masks itself in the armor of good. Not only so, but good may be changed into evil by hasty and misdirected application, and ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... sword. In my opinion, however, it would be dangerous to repose too much confidence in them. The king's brother-in-law shewed me a letter of recommendation of the place, written in Dutch, and left there by a Hollander; and he requested of us to leave a letter to the same purport, certifying their honest and friendly dealings, that they might be able to show to others of our nation. To this we consented, and I gave them a writing, sealed by our captain, expressing the good entertainment we had received, and the prices of provisions; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... with legal verbiage, and there were several expressions of which she did not perhaps appreciate the full effect; but a very hasty glance enabled her to ascertain the purport of the paper. It was a will, by which, in one item, her father devised to his daughter Janet, the child of the woman known as Julia Brown, the sum of ten thousand dollars, and a certain plantation or tract of land a short distance from the town of Wellington. The rest and residue of ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt

... but it was such a wan little attempt that it pained more than pleased him. Something was sorely troubling sunshiny Dolly and he wondered what, not knowing the purport of her begging letter to Mrs. Calvert nor what the telegram had said. He feared she was still grieving about the lost one hundred dollars and could sympathize in that, for he also grieved and puzzled. He made up his mind ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond

... eager crowd might have been seen pressing up to a card displayed in the Castle Tavern, Norwich. The card was signed T. C. and T. Belcher; but every one knew that the initials stood for the Champion of England, Thomas Cribb. The purport of the notice was that Edward Painter of Norwich was to fight Thomas Oliver of London for a purse of 100 guineas, on Monday, the 17th of July, in a field within ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... aunt, may perhaps be inserted here. It was an answer to one that Honora had written a few days after her installation at Grenoble, the contents of which need not be gone into: we, who know her, would neither laugh nor weep at reading it, and its purport may be more or less accurately surmised from ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... printed on paper bearing a water-mark dated 1806, were thrown upon the market at an early period, but it has not been ascertained at what date or in what place they were printed. They are undoubtedly deliberate forgeries. They purport, even in respect of errata, to be identical with the genuine issue of 1807; but they were not set up from the same type, and it is inconceivable that a second issue, set up from different type and with slightly different ornaments, was printed by Ridge for piratical purposes. To cite a few obvious ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron

... verbal messages began with the "presenting of compliments," a social note, no matter what its length or purport, would have been considered rude, unless written in the third person. But as in a communication of any length the difficulty of this form is almost insurmountable (to say nothing of the pedantic effect of its accomplishment), it is no longer chosen—aside from the formal invitation, ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... according you the interview you desire," he said, pointing to a chair, "but I shall be glad if you will explain the purport of your visit in as few words as possible. You will, I hope, appreciate the fact that your presence here is a matter of grave ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... seemed suddenly to be ringing. His head was awhirl, his pulses fairly pounding with the weird, quixotic purport of his impulse. ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... practice in the art of oratory in that best of all training schools, the labour union of the Old Land. He began by expressing entire sympathy with the spirit of the opposition. The opposition, however, had completely misunderstood the intent and purport of the resolution. None of them desired trouble. There need not be, indeed, he hoped there would not be trouble, but there were certain very ugly facts that must be faced. He then, in terse, forceful language, presented the facts in connection ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor

... North that summer for the purpose of the recuperation of his health, having made known his plan, he received "promises of pecuniary aid, and of active cooperation."[243] At the next session of the Virginia Assembly, Mercer introduced his resolutions, the purport of which asked the national government to find a territory on the North Pacific on which to settle free blacks and those afterwards emancipated in Virginia. These resolutions having been amended by the Senate ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... no departure of any kind from the normal life which we were following both on sea and on land. A feint which did not fully fulfill its purpose would have been worse than useless, and there was the obvious danger that the suspicions of the Turks would be aroused by our adoption of a course the real purport of which could not have ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various

... as he was with great topic, evidently noticed the odd state of things, for towards end of magnificent speech he dropped his voice right down through the grating into the chamber below, so that Strangers in distant Gallery lost the purport of his words. Above-board—or rather above iron grating—House presented spectacle worthy of occasion. Last time anything like it seen was in April, 1886, when first Home-Rule Bill introduced. Singularly like it this afternoon, with chairs blocking the floor in fashion to which LORD-CHAMBERLAIN, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 25, 1893 • Various

... sermon was to the same purport as the first. Preposing no text, he spoke to the following effect, and indeed the following are of the very words ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald

... writers usually belonged to the special class of scribes who employed the same conventional hand and devoted their lives to the acquisition of learning. It is probable that they acted as private secretaries as well as public clerks, and that consequently many of the letters which purport to come from other members of the community were really written by the professional scribes. But in Babylonia it is difficult to find any traces of the public or private letter-writer who is still so conspicuous a figure in the East. It is seldom if ever that the Babylonian, whoever ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce

... see the matter out. He would not allow Miss Mackenzie to be despoiled of her fortune and her hand,—both of which he had a right to regard as his own,—without making known to the public a transaction which he regarded as nefarious. Then there was a good deal of eloquent indignation the nature and purport of which the reader will ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope

... brief have taught so many lessons. For us who are busied with automatic writing the lesson is clear. We have here demonstrably what we can find in other cases only inferentially, an intelligence manifesting itself continuously by written answers, of purport quite outside the normal subject's conscious mind, while yet that intelligence was but a part, a fraction, an aspect, of the normal ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead

... the danger, and at once resolved to be free from it. On the 1st of July 1793, that body issued a decree with the following purport: "The Committee of Public Safety ordains that the son of Capet be separated from his mother, and be delivered to an instructor, whom the general director of the ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... Imagined, the thing in any way conceived as Visible, what is it but a Garment, a Clothing of the higher, celestial Invisible, "unimaginable formless, dark with excess of bright"? Under which point of view the following passage, so strange in purport, so strange in phrase, ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle

... listened, but it was not until afterward that I understood the full purport of his speech or of Kitty's story of the night and morning. Their words reached me as if spoken from some great distance by the people who live ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark

... plan, had been the bearer of letters to Savonarola—carefully-forged letters; one of them, by a stratagem, bearing the very signature and seal of the Cardinal of Naples, who of all the Sacred College had most exerted his influence at Rome in favour of the Frate. The purport of the letters was to state that the Cardinal was on his progress from Pisa, and, unwilling for strong reasons to enter Florence, yet desirous of taking counsel with Savonarola at this difficult juncture, intended to pause this very day at San Casciano, about ten miles ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... Naples, carrying as many soldiers as possible, pointing out that he had Dragut in a trap, from which he could not possibly escape, but that this time he wished to make security doubly secure. Letters to the same purport were also sent to Don Juan de Vega, the Viceroy of Sicily, and to Marco Centurion at the admiral's own city of Genoa. Doria was leaving nothing to chance this time. Meanwhile, great earthworks had been thrown up at the ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey

... broken down under her griefs. What other hypothesis could account for her writing of Willis Enderby as being still alive? And of her having letters from him? To the appeal for Banneker which, concealed though it was, underlay the whole purport of the writing, Io closed her heart, seared by the very sight of his name. She would have torn the letter up, but something impelled her to read it again; some hint of a pregnant secret to be gleaned from it, if one but held the clue. Hers was a keen and thoughtful mind. She sent it exploring ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... which the laboring classes of England are reduced. Hearing singing in the street, under my window, one morning, I looked out and saw a body of men, apparently of the lower class, but decent and sober looking, who were singing in a rude and plaintive strain some ballad, the purport of which I could not understand. On making inquiry, I discovered it was part of a body of miners, who, about eighteen weeks before, in consequence of not being able to support their families with the small pittance allowed ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor

... cause. Thus it was a worthy epithet which the Creeks applied to their supreme invisible ruler, when they addressed him as ESAUGETUH EMISSEE, Master of Breath, and doubtless it was at first but a title of equivalent purport which the Cherokees, their neighbors, were wont to employ, OONAWLEH UNGGI, Eldest of Winds, but rapidly leading to a complete identification of the divine with the natural phenomena of meteorology. This seems to have taken ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton

... same year. Previously to this discreditable act, the Department of State had committed one of imbecility. It had issued a circular to the different local authorities of the Union with avowed reference to the finance controversy. Its purport was a request for them to furnish information in regard to the amount of public expenditures over which they had control. Against this course Cooper protested at once in a long and vigorous letter to the American people, written ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury

... Jinnee, smiling indulgently, "that I would not do to promote thy welfare, for thou hast rendered me inestimable service. Acquaint me therefore with the abode of this sage, and I will present myself before him, and if haply he should find no inscription upon the seal, or its purport should be hidden from him, then will I convince him that thou hast spoken ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey

... descending, were adduced with the main purpose of showing the immense difference of vital endowments in different strains of blood; a difference to which all ordinary medication is in all probability a matter of comparatively trivial purport. Many affections which art has to strive against might be easily shown to be vital to the well-being of society. Hydrocephalus, tabes mesenterica, and other similar maladies, are natural agencies which cut off the children of races that are sinking below the decent minimum which ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... the Margrave of Baden, and the Duke John Frederick of Wirtemburg, — Lutherans as well as Calvinists, — who for themselves and their heirs entered into a close confederacy under the title of the Evangelical Union. The purport of this union was, that the allied princes should, in all matters relating to religion and their civil rights, support each other with arms and counsel against every aggressor, and should all stand as one ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.

... feeble executions shall not be wanting to promote the intentions of so laudable an institution; and while I endeavour to fulfil the purport of this meeting, I shall hope not to fail in proving ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole

... eternally bubbling over with Compliments and Kind Wishes. Whenever he met an Acquaintance he handed him a rhetorical Yard of Daisies and then smeared him with Sweet Endearments. His talk never had any specific Purport. It was unadulterated Con. The Gusher should have been in the Diplomatic Service. One of his hot Specialties was to get up at Dinner Parties and propose Toasts. He would hot-air the Ladies until they flushed ...
— People You Know • George Ade

... experience sexual excitement in watching the instructress chastise the children. Since these advertisements are intelligible only to initiates, they naturally receive answers from persons who have failed to understand their purport; but the sadist (male or female) and the masochist (male or female) is aware that the use of the word "energetic" refers to this sexual perversion. Of course, however, an advertisement in which an energetic tutor or governess is asked for, may he perfectly ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll

... I had told my two friends as well as I could what had happened at the bank (with which they were pleased, as I had been), those questions arose, and were, I believe, chiefly to the following purport—setting aside ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... the transient joys of time, Their purport not the Pearl of our desire. Loved are these confines as immortal clime, And dear the hearth-flame as the altar fire; When fate accomplished wins her utmost bourne, And fulness ousts for aye fair images, Will doting mem'ry from their funeral pyre Rise phoenix-wise and earth-sick spirits yearn ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer

... essentials, are to a certain extent juvenile; but juvenility is anything but uninteresting when it is that of such men as Coventry Patmore and Dante Rossetti. "The Germ" contains nothing of which, in spirit and in purport, the writers need be ashamed. If people like to read it without paying fancy prices for the original edition, they were and are, so far as I am concerned, welcome to do so. Before Mr. Stock's long-standing scheme could be legally carried ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various

... Sidney wrote after receiving Joseph Snowdon's confidential communications was despatched two days later. He expressed himself in carefully chosen words, but the purport of the letter was to make known that he no longer thought of Jane save as a friend; that the change in her position had compelled him to take another view of his relations to her than that he had confided to Michael at Danbury. Most fortunately—he added—no utterance of his feelings had ever escaped ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing

... to be very kind to pet animals,—though they do abuse the burros,—cats especially being of a plump, handsome species, quite at home, always sleeping lazily in the sunshine. If they do purr in Spanish, it is so very like the genuine English article that its purport is quite unmistakable. The persistency of the beggars here attracted attention, and on inquiry about the matter, a resident American informed us that these beggars were actually organized by the priests, to whom they ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou

... tales which they themselves found so thrilling in their own childhood. Indian nursery tales, it is true, have a more religious tinge than those of Europe, but they are none the less appreciated on that account. The first six stories in this little book purport to explain the connexion between the heavenly bodies and the days of the week. So each day of the week has its separate tale. And all through Shravan or August, probably because it is the wettest ...
— Deccan Nursery Tales - or, Fairy Tales from the South • Charles Augustus Kincaid

... words there crept above the threshold of my conscious mind a series of nine long forgotten sounds. Like a flash of lightning in the darkness their full purport dawned upon me—the key to the three great doors ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... navigable near its exit from the N'yanza. I told him he had been appointed by the king to escort us down the river to Gani. He took the affair very seriously, delivering himself to the following purport: "Well, then, my days are numbered; for if I refuse compliance I shall lose my head; and if I attempt to pass Kamrasi's, which is on the river, I shall lose my life; for I am a marked man there, having once led an army past his palace and back again. It would be no ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... strive to weigh to a grain the relative quantities of devotion which we may render in the service of Mammon and of God, are wholly of recent invention and application; nor have they the slightest bearing, either on the spiritual purport of the final commandment of the Decalogue, or on the distinctness of the subsequent prohibition ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... one's possession a known published libel is prima facie evidence of publication against such possessors; admitting this authority, it seems not to touch the case before us, unless those libels were published within this District. They purport on the face of them to have been printed in New York, and there published, so far as sending them abroad, within that state, from the printing office, and putting them into the hands of others amounts to a publication ...
— The Trial of Reuben Crandall, M.D. Charged with Publishing and Circulating Seditious and Incendiary Papers, &c. in the District of Columbia, with the Intent of Exciting Servile Insurrection. • Unknown

... was not perhaps the exact wording, but it was the purport of the resolution, and was presented while Neal Dow, the President of the Convention, was absent from the chair, and after much angry and abusive discussion, it was passed by that ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... I could speak, before I could even grasp the full purport of her decision. I followed the flutter of her skirt up the stairs, half tempted to rush after, yet as instantly comprehended the uselessness of any attempt at influencing her. Even the short space of our acquaintance had served to convince me that she was a woman of ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish

... Senate of the United States: The purport of this address is to state a claim I feel myself entitled to make on the United States, leaving it to their representatives in congress to decide on its worth and its merits. ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll

... The purport of this piece of after-dinner eloquence was duly conveyed to Counsellor Webb, who fully appreciated the remarks about the popularity-hunting gentleman who was dirtying his hands. Up to this time these ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... narrative, to wit, how she subsequently matched the shattered soup-plates at Harrod's. Like an imported plant species that sometimes flourishes exceedingly, and makes itself at home to the dwarfing and overshadowing of all native species, Thorle dominated the dinner-party and thrust its original purport somewhat into the background. Serena began to look helplessly apologetic. It was altogether rather a relief when the filling of champagne glasses gave Francesca an excuse for bringing matters back ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki

... Orestes. It was true that his hopes were "sapped" and "his name blighted," and it was natural, if not heroic, first to persuade himself that his suffering exceeded his fault, that he was more sinned against than sinning, and, so persuaded, to take care that he should not suffer alone. The general purport of plea and indictment is plain enough, but the exact interpretation of his phrases, the appropriation of his dark sayings, belong rather to the biography of the poet than to a commentary on his poems. (For Lady Byron's comment on the "allusions" to herself ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... soul and spirit within. They instinctively felt that the art which lives is the art that gives man something to live by; and that, just because its form is more significant than other of man's utterances, it must have a deeper significance also in substance and in purport. Of this purport Criticism of life—the phrase suggested by one who was at once a poet and a critic—is doubtless an unhappy, because a pedantic definition; and it is rather creation of life, than the criticism of it, that art has to offer. But ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... arrived from Halifax to Nantucket, to take off some of those who proposed to remove; two families had gone on board, and others were going, when a letter was received there, which had been written by Monsieur le Marquis de la Fayette, to a gentleman in Boston, and transmitted by him to Nantucket. The purport of the letter was to dissuade their accepting the British proposals, and to assure them that their friends in France would endeavor to do something for them. This instantly suspended their design: not another went on board, and the vessel returned to Halifax ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... purport of this interview?" asked La Tour, impatiently; "and why am I compelled to endure your presence? speak, and briefly, if you have aught to ask of me; or go, and leave me to the solitude, which ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney

... Bouillon, Comte de Bechamel, Grandee of Spain and Prince of Volovento, in our Assembly what was the oath you swore?' The old man writhed as he remembered its terrific purport. ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... person on business from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone has been cast, but, alas! without the ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... told Ulick the full story of the enmity between him and Quinton Edge, then of the years of his apprenticeship to his Uncle Hugolin, and of the message in the bottle that had served to crystallize desire into action. The purport of the letter was still fresh in his mind, and he repeated it as nearly as ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... Bob was startled by a low whistle. He looked up. Within fifty feet of him, but so far in the shadow as to be indistinguishable, a man peered at him. As he caught Bob's eyes he made a violent gesture whose purport Bob ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... his councillor others addressed to himself, and which had arrived by the same opportunity. Greedily did the Assistant devour their contents, and unbounded, though concealed, was his joy at finding them in one particular of the same purport as his own. His face, however, was sad, and his voice mournful, as, returning ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... had drawn and legally sped to its purport the will of the lamented Squire Philip, who refused very clearly to leave it, and took horse to flourish it at his rebellious son. Mr. Jellicorse had done the utmost, as behooved him, against that rancorous testament; but meeting with silence more savage than words, and ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... should be arrested as a suspect, possibly a demand might be made as to how you obtained this pass. However, even that did not trouble me greatly; for as I myself open and read the maire's letters, I should have no difficulty in keeping him altogether in the dark as to the purport of any letter that might come, and should myself pen an answer, with explanations which would no doubt be ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty

... continually being asked, especially by novitiates in spiritual investigations, How shall we know that the spirits who communicate with us are really the ones whom they purport to be?... In giving the results of our own experience and observation upon this subject, we would premise that spirits unquestionably can, and often do, personate other spirits, and that, too, often with such ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith

... included those Brothers (the majority) who saw nothing in Freemasonry but the external forms and ceremonies, and prized the strict performance of these forms without troubling about their purport or significance. Such were Willarski and even the Grand Master of ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... Esq.—My dear Sir,—Mr. Whistler has called upon me respecting your visit here yesterday with Mr. Legros and Dr. Hamilton, the purport of which had been communicated to him by ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler

... sentences of similar purport were sent in reply to other messages received. Then "Bill" cut the radio conversation short with a warning that he did not dare continue it longer and left the table. As he got up from his seat, Hal stepped into the ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield

... Expectations, while to Thatcher's active but not curious fancy it had apparently lifted his friend's bark over the bar in the Monterey mountains into an open quicksilver sea. So that he was considerably surprised on receiving a note from Biggs to this purport: ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte

... same year (1842) a Export was presented to Parliament by the Select Committee on "The Improvement of the Health of Towns," and especially on "The Effect of the Interment of Bodies in Towns." Its purport may be summed up in the ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent

... this, Schofield wrote me another dispatch, briefer, but of the same general purport. [Footnote: Id., p. 523.] It was probably sent by way of precaution, in case any accident happened to the bearer of the other. Arrangements had been made to get over some horsemen so as to speed these dispatches, and they came through to me by midnight. But meanwhile my perplexity as to my duty ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... note again, then mechanically folding it, returned it to its envelope, and walked slowly back to Wayne Hall divided between her disappointment in the letter, and speculation as to the purport ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower

... hostess could discover her wants and show her goodwill. She fed her and bathed her face, saw to the fire and left her to sleep. "I'm boilin' a hen to mak' broth for your denner, Mem. Try and get a bit sleep now." The purport of the advice was clear, and Cousin Eugenie turned obediently ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan

... first sent Mexia and Alonso de Alvarado to prepare the way for his own coming, by advising Hinojosa of the purport of his mission. He soon after followed, and was received by that commander with every show of outward respect. But while the latter listened with deference to the representations of Gasca, they failed to work the change in him which they had wrought in Mexia; and he concluded by asking the president ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... the government and institutions of his country. It occurred to him to prompt Benson, through the convenient medium of French, to sound him about England and European politics. This Harry did, not immediately, lest he might suspect the purport of their conversational interlude, but by a dexterous approach to the point after sufficient preliminary; and it then appeared that he had lumped "the despotic powers of the old world" in a heap together, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... the powers of the three branches of the legislature, underwent no material change between the time of Elizabeth and the time of William the Third. The most celebrated laws of the seventeenth century on those subjects, the Petition of Right, the Declaration of Right, are purely declaratory. They purport to be merely recitals of the old polity of England. They do not establish free government as a salutary improvement, but claim it as an undoubted and immemorial inheritance. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... for his brother's death, or joy for it, had so intoxicated the new maitre du palais, that he would not ratify any one of the conditions he had imposed: and though my Lord Hartington's virtue interposed, and remonstrated on the purport of the message he had carried, the Duke persisted in assuming the whole and undivided power himself, and left Mr. Fox no choice, but of obeying or disobeying, as he might choose. This produced the next day a letter from Mr. Fox, carried ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... Colonies possessing Representative Assemblies, Laws purport to be made by the Queen or by the Governor on Her Majesty's behalf or sometimes by the Governor alone, omitting any express reference to Her Majesty, with the advice and consent of the Council and ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey

... "Soft" Drinks.*—Recently the practice has sprung up of using caffeine as a constituent of certain drinks supplied at the soda-water fountains. Such drinks usually purport to be made from the kola nut, which contains caffeine, or to consist of extracts from the plants which yield cocoa and chocolate, when in reality they consist of artificial mixtures to which caffeine has been ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.

... The purport of these observations is to evince the importance of the subject we are considering. The theatre, where many arts are combined to produce a magical effect; where the most lofty and profound poetry has for its interpreter the most ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... between causes and effects, or between effects and their causes, may be expressed in various ways. The requirement is that the expression be one of fact and that, if the principle purport to cover the entire subject, all of the pertinent facts (page 24) be stated, though not necessarily all the ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College

... contradict each other, as in the case of the 4th-century Christian pilgrim to Jerusalem who boasted that she had not washed ner face for eighteen years for fear of removing therefrom the holy chrism of baptism. The purport, then, of ablutions is to remove, not dust and dirt, but the—-to us imaginary—stains contracted by contact with the dead, with childbirth, with menstruous women, with murder whether wilful or involuntary, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... uncertain outlines are bathed in a vague golden air of imagination, and are shown to us with the magic touch of a Coleridge, a Leopardi—the touch which gives a mood, a scene, with scarce an obvious detail of either mood or scene. We may not understand the purport of the song, we understand the feeling that prompted the song, as, having done with reading 'Kubla Khan,' there remains in our mind, not the pictured vision of palace or dancer, but a personal participation in Coleridge's heightened fancy, ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson

... whatso I read therein until I fell a-weeping and a-laughing at one and the same time. So now do thou retire and hie thee home." Ja'afar did his bidding and reassumed the office of Wazir after fairer fashion than he was before. And now return we to the purport of our story as regardeth the designs of Attaf and what befel him when they took him out of gaol. They at once led him to the Kazi who began by questioning him, saying, "Woe to thee, didst thou murther this Hashimi?"[FN370] Replied he, "Yes, I did!" "And why killedst ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... Amelia, "do not delay my request any longer; what you say now greatly increases my curiosity, and my mind will be on the rack till you discover your whole meaning; for I am more and more convinced that something of the utmost importance was the purport of your message." ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... best not to show this letter to her uncle; but she acquainted him with its purport, and, as she expected, he begged her instantly to assure Miss Stackpole, in his name, that he should be delighted to receive her at Gardencourt. "Though she's a literary lady," he said, "I suppose that, being ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... remembered by many that Wyatt attempted to make his escape from the Auburn prison, and when Gordon, the man he afterward murdered, told the keepers, he was searched, and upon his person a letter was found, which letter contained no names of men or places, nor was it directed; but from the purport, it was evidently written for the purpose of sending to Ohio, for it stated that he dare not venture back, as the people would recognise him as the murderer of a certain officer who had made an attempt to arrest him. The reader will also recollect ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green

... Mr. Vallandigham, though less valuable, is of the same purport, that "it is vain to underrate either the man or his conspiracy.... He is the farthest possible removed from the ordinary ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau

... M. H. d. C. G., 1909, p. 173 ff. remarks that we should probably regard it only as an accident, if there are not found, in the famous hermetic chemical writings, similar signs with additions as would for experts, exclude all doubt as to their purport. In 1660 appeared at Paris an edition of a writing very celebrated among the followers of the art, "Twelve Keys of Philosophy," which was ostensibly written by one Brother Basilius Valentinus. In this edition we see at the beginning a remarkable ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer

... which this was spoken was as courteous as the purport of the speech was hospitable. "Be pleased to be covered (continued the Abbot) and I will conduct you forthwith to the Library: although I regret to add that our Librarian Odilo is just now from home—having gone, for the day, upon a botanical excursion ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... said on the subject. His introduction summarized the information, to be extracted from his texts, bearing on the social institutions of Babylonia. By arranging the texts in classes according to their purport and contents he was able to elucidate each text by comparison with similar documents and so to gain a very clear idea of the meaning of separate clauses, even when the exact shade of meaning of individual words remained obscure. Any advance which the interpretation of ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns

... quitted the room without another word, I realized, in a flash, the purport of our mission; I understood my friend's ominous calm, ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... resist the impetuous torrent that assailed it. The populace, as well as persons in authority, suddenly gave heed to rumors most startling which came in at once from Spain, from France, and from the North of Italy, and the purport of which was to throw upon the fathers the most grievous imputations affecting their personal character as well as their doctrine. These men were reported to be heretics, Lutherans in disguise, seducers of youth, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... purport of these documents?" said Leopold, who had listened with perfect calmness ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... late. Before Lewis understood the purport of the speech Lady Manorwater and her party were at the folds, and as he made one final effort with the refractory needle a voice ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan



Words linked to "Purport" :   claim, intend, tenor, signification, meaning, significance, mean, think, import, strain



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