"Signification" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the Oxford Dictionary, begins in A.D. 888, and is still heartily alive in Yorks. and North Derbyshire, where it is used in the sense of being oversensitive to pain and especially to cold. In this special signification, to which it has locally settled down after a thousand years of experience, it has no rival; and its restoration to our domestic vocabulary would probably have a wholesome moral and ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 3 (1920) - A Few Practical Suggestions • Society for Pure English
... sight, you may find a pettiness in those minute pieties, they have their signification as a testimony to the wholeness of Pascal's assent, the entirety of his submission, his immense sincerity, the heroic grandeur of his achieved faith. The seventeenth century presents survivals of the gloomy mental habits of the Middle Age, but for the most part ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... there. Nay, she does more, according to her confession. She saw that he was poor and had no clothes (to use her own expression.) I do not think, gentlemen, that she exactly meant that, when she said it, in its literal signification (laughter), but she certainly said that he had no clothes, and that she clothed him and she "took him in" (loud laughter). She went to A. T. Stewart's (kind-hearted charitable woman!) and saw Mr. Griswold. She interceded with Griswold and ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... of," the magistrate said, "have vast temples constructed of huge stones placed in circles, which appear to me to have, like the great pyramids of Egypt, an astronomical signification, for I found that the stones round the sacrificial altars were so placed that the sun at its rising threw its rays upon the stone only upon the longest day ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... Philistines, and that they themselves are Philistines. What then is easier than to find in the name of Ghat the Gath of the Philistines? But unfortunately, Azgher is the Touarick name of themselves and their country. Still the name of Ghat must have its origin. As before noticed, the original signification of the term Ghat has been traced to mean "Sun" or "God," in the ancient Libyo-Egyptian language. I am not competent to give an opinion on the subject. One of the Latin writers makes the aboriginal people of North Africa to have been Medes. The probability ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... their sacrament. But since Christ died on the rood-tree, With bread and wine him worship we, And on Shrove Thursday in his maundy[62] Was his commandment. But for this thing used should be Afterward as now done we, In signification, believe you me, Melchisedec did so; And tithes-making, as you see here, Of Abraham beginning were. Therefore he was to God full dear, And so were they both too. By Abraham understand I may The father of heaven in good fay,[63] Melchisedec a ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... different colors; each having its own particular signification. The color for soldiers was red; for gold, yellow; for silver, white; for corn, green, &c. This writing by knots was especially employed for numerical and statistical tables; each single knot representing ten; each double knot stood for one hundred; ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... all how much more probable it is, a priori, that the work of perception, just as any other natural and spontaneous work, should have a utilitarian signification. ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy
... priest, Julia was handed to the throne, and the crown of roses was placed upon her head by the white-haired veteran. A sweet chorus was then chanted—Vive, vive la rosiere!—in the melodious verses of which the signification of the ceremonial and the praises of the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various
... 28. "Ye shall not make any cutting in your flesh for the dead, nor print any mark upon you." So in Deut. xiv. 1.; and Parkhurst, in his Heb. Lexicon, commenting on the passage in Deuteronomy, says, the word rendered to cut, is of more general signification, including "all assaults on their own persons from immoderate grief, such as beating the breasts, tearing the hair, &c. which were commonly practised by the heathen, who have no hope of a resurrection." He instances in the Iliad xix, line 284, in the Eneid iv, line 673, the case of the Egyptians ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... to be a kennel term for hampering a dog, but it does not presently follow that the word bore no other signification; indeed, there is no more fruitful mother of confusion ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 • Various
... separately, each with a president and a council formed of agents of the Company. The name of Presidency was applied to the whole territory subject to this authority. This expression has no longer its real signification; however, it is still employed in official acts. British India is no longer divided into presidencies, but into provinces, eight of which are very extensive countries, having separate governments. The presidencies of Bombay and Madras are to-day only ...
— Les Parsis • D. Menant
... value is not to be found, let it be understood, in every so-called novel. The great majority are not works of art in anything but a very secondary signification. One might almost number on one's fingers the works in which such a supreme artistic intention has been in any way superior to the other and lesser aims, themselves more or less artistic, that generally go hand in hand with it in the conception of prose romance. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the enemies of freedom of thought and of the right of private judgment. From this time Pasquin's fame became universal. The words pasquil or pasquinade were adopted info almost every European tongue, and soon embraced in their widening signification all sorts of satiric epigrams. A great part of the volume published by Curio is made up, indeed, of attacks on the Roman Church which have no connection with Pasquin as their author. The style and the subject of many of them betray a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Overton. Fanny Dragwell had many good qualities, and many others which were rather doubtful. One of the latter had procured her more enemies than at her age she had any right to expect. It was what the French term "malice," which bears a very different signification from the same word in our own language. She delighted in all practical jokes, and would carry them to an excess, at the very idea of which others would be startled; but it must be acknowledged that she generally ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... that some entries have lines //// drawn across the writing, while upon others marks similar to the capital letters T, F, and A are placed at the end of the lines. But as the Promus is here printed page for page as in the manuscript, I am not raising the question of the signification of these marks, excepting only to say they indicate that Bacon made ...
— Bacon is Shake-Speare • Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence
... associations be attached. We cannot explain them adequately on principles of utility; in attempting to do so we rob them of their true character. We give them a meaning often paradoxical and distorted, and generally weaker than their signification in common language. And as words influence men's thoughts, we fear that the hold of morality may also be weakened, and the sense of duty impaired, if virtue and vice are explained only as the qualities which do or ...
— Philebus • Plato
... means of comparing the effects of nurture and nature; physiological signification of twinship; replies to a circular of inquiries; eighty cases of close resemblance between twins; the points in which their resemblance was closest; extracts from the replies; interchangeableness of likeness; cases of similar forms of insanity in both twins; their tastes ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... product of creative thought, existing in words only, as language changes, it alters through forgetfulness of the earlier meanings of words, through similarities in sounds deceiving the ear, or through a confusion of the literal with the metaphorical signification of the same word. The character of languages also favors or retards such changes, pliable and easily modified ones, such as those of the American Indians, and in a less degree those of the Aryan nations, favoring a developed mythology, while rigid ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... upon account of his attendance at the court of the savages, and not having books in the island, he had consequently many words to learn of this country's language when he arrived in England. This task his retentive memory made easy to him; but his childish inattention to their proper signification still made his want of ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... mere logical corollary from secondary or derivative doctrines. It is involved in the very meaning of Utility, or the Greatest-Happiness Principle. That principle is a mere form of words without rational signification, unless one person's happiness, supposed equal in degree (with the proper allowance made for kind), is counted for exactly as much as another's. Those conditions being supplied, Bentham's dictum, 'everybody to count for one, nobody for more than ...
— Utilitarianism • John Stuart Mill
... doctrine of following nature was a political dogma. It meant a rebellion against existing social institutions, customs, and ideals (See ante, p. 91). Rousseau's statement that everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Creator has its signification only in its contrast with the concluding part of the same sentence: "Everything degenerates in the hands of man." And again he says: "Natural man has an absolute value; he is a numerical unit, a complete integer and has no relation save to himself and to his fellow man. Civilized ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... Divine nature. An intrepid courage, which is inherent in your Grace, is at best but a holiday kind of virtue, to be seldom exercised, and never but in cases of necessity: affability, mildness, tenderness, and a word which I would fain bring back to its original signification of virtue, I mean good-nature, are of daily use: they are the bread of mankind, and staff of life; neither sighs, nor tears, nor groans, nor curses of the vanquished, follow acts of compassion and of charity, but ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... perfectly conformable to the simplicity of those times, places, and persons, however meanly they may now be looked upon. And as the harvest was last concluded with several preparations of meal, or brought to be ready for the "mell," this term became, in a translated signification, to mean the last of other things; as, when a horse comes last in the race, they often say in the North, "He has ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the other the globe, they look like roasted college beadles. One of the emperors holds a sword instead of a sceptre. I cannot imagine the reason of this variation from the established order, though it has doubtless some occult signification, as Germans have the remarkable peculiarity of meaning something in whatever ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Gil Blas says, "Bien loin de traiter d'excellence les seigneurs, elles ne leur donnoient pas meme de la seigneurie." This would hardly be applicable to the manners of the French. The principal of Lucinde's creditors, "se nommoit Bernard Astuto, qui meritoit bien son nom." The signification of the name is clear in Spanish; but in French the allusion is totally without meaning. This probably escaped Le Sage in the hurry of composition, or it would have been easy to have removed so clear a mark of translation. The following mark is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... traditionary history, entitled to that station in society as one of his constitutional rights, as being descended from free parents in contradistinction to 'villains,' which should be borne in remembrance, because the term 'FREEMAN' has been, in modern times, perverted from its constitutional signification without any statutable authority." The LIBERI HOMINES are so described in the Doomsday Book. They were the only men of honor, faith, trust, and reputation in the kingdom; and from among such of these as were not barons, the knights did choose jurymen, served ...
— Landholding In England • Joseph Fisher
... threw himself down a precipice, was he raving mad? Or will you absolve the man from the imputation of a disturbed mind, and condemn him for the crime, according to your custom, imposing, on things named that have an affinity in signification? ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... philology. He not only compiled vocabularies of the extinct Sumerian, which were needed for practical reasons, he also explained the meaning of the names of the foreign kings who had reigned over Babylonia, and from time to time noted the signification of words belonging to the various languages by which he was surrounded. Thus one of the tablets we possess contains a list of Kassite or Kossean words with their signification; in other cases we have Mitannian, Elamite, and Canaanite ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... the kinetoscope. It came out in 1893. It was hailed with delight at the time and for a short period was much in demand, but soon new devices came into the field and the kinetoscope was superseded by other machines bearing similar names with a like signification. ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... as well as a source of strength, security, and honour to the nation and its rulers, and I resolved that henceforth my name, the Bank of England, should carry with it a meaning wherever it was heard, far beyond its original signification; it should be another term for wealth, honour, and thrift—a something to be trusted, and in which nothing foul, mean, or ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various
... another style of crossing which when practicable, may, it is believed, be made a means to the highest degree of improvement attainable, and especially in the breeding of horses. The word "breed" is often used with varying signification. In order to be understood, let me premise that I use it here simply to designate a class of animals possessing a good degree of uniformity growing out of the fact of a common origin and of their having been ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale
... of medicine," was meant to comprehend in its signification the whole routine of treatment demanded by nature to rid itself of disease. This usually consisted of a Lobelia emetic or vomit, more or less thorough as the symptoms of the impending disease appeared to ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... S[OE]UR,—La presence du digne epoux de votre Majeste au milieu d'un camp francais est un fait d'une grande signification politique, puisqu'il prouve l'union intime des deux pays: mais j'aime mieux aujourd'hui ne pas envisager le cote politique de cette visite et vous dire sincerement combien j'ai ete heureux de me trouver pendant quelques jours avec un Prince aussi accompli, ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... great ability were the distinguishing parts of his character; the latter, he had often observed, had led to the destruction of the former, and used frequently to lament that great and good had not the same signification. He was an excellent husbandman, but had resolved not to exceed such a degree of wealth; all above it he bestowed in secret bounties many years after the sum he aimed at for his own use was attained. Yet he did not slacken his industry, but to a decent old age spent the life ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... top was crimson, at the right hand blue, and at the left hand yellow. And they said, 'Know ye not that all life is three-fold!' It was a dark saying; but I then thought I faintly comprehended what Pythagoras has written concerning the mysterious signification of One and Three. Many other things I saw and heard, but was forbidden to relate. The gate of the temple was an arch, supported by two figures with heavy drapery, eyes closed, and arms folded. They told me these were Sleep and Death. Over the gate was written in large letters, ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... be the source of happiness to all the living members. I wish you would take it so, and flatter yourselves no more with church titles, as if these were sufficient evidences for your salvation. You would all be called Christians, but it fears me you know not many of you the true meaning and signification of that word, the most comfortable sense of it is hid from you. The meaning of it is, that a man is renewed by Christ in the spirit of his mind. As Christ and the Spirit are inseparable, so a Christian and ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... give to all those who are infidels suitable instruction in Christian doctrine—not merely so that they know it by rote, but also so that they may understand (so far as they are capable of this) the signification of the words, and the mysteries contained therein. Thus, too, he will be able to make each and every one of them understand all that is necessary for them to believe, and know, and do, in order to be good Christians. All this should be done before baptism is conferred upon them; and like efforts ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair
... and Gingerbread from a Grinder of Knives and Scissars. Nay so strangely infatuated are some very eminent Artists of this particular Grace in a Cry, that none but then Acquaintance are able to guess at their Profession; for who else can know, that Work if I had it, should be the Signification of a Corn-Cutter? ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... making an image voluminous and vast;—the mind can form no larger idea of space than the eye can take in at a single glance. The rest is a name written in a map, a calculation of arithmetic. For instance, what is the true signification of that immense mass of territory and population, known by the name of China, to us? An inch of paste-board on a wooden globe, of no more account than a China orange! Things near us are seen of the size of life: things at a distance are diminished to the size of the understanding. We measure ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... service, and in certain parts of the noble church (the towers of which were not yet finished) the deepest obscurity prevailed. Nevertheless a goodly number of tapers were burning in honor of the saints on the triangular candle-trays destined to receive such pious offerings, the merit and signification of which have never been sufficiently explained. The lights on each altar and all the candelabra in the choir were burning. Irregularly shed among a forest of columns and arcades which supported the three naves of the cathedral, the gleam of these masses of ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac
... general oath of allegiance to the king was taken, and all debates between the several inferior cooerdinate jurisdictions, as well as the causes of too much weight for them, finally determined. In this court presided (for in strict signification he does not seem to have been a judge) an officer of great consideration in those times, called the Ealdorman of the Shire. With him sat the bishop, to decide in whatever related to the Church, and to mitigate the rigor of the law by ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... more natural than to reckon the fraction, if we are desirous of obtaining absolute precision? Is six months of your time of no value? Are thirty minutes more or less on the dial of your watch of no signification to you?" ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... 1794), though a zealous evolutionist, can hardly be said to have made any real advance on his predecessors; and, notwithstanding that Goethe (1791-4) had the advantage of a wide knowledge of morphological facts, and a true insight into their signification, while he threw all the power of a great poet into the expression of his conceptions, it may be questioned whether he supplied the doctrine of evolution with a firmer scientific basis than it already possessed. ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... presents no difficulties, for maya is aja, i.e. unborn, not produced. On the explanation of the Sutra writer, however, aja cannot mean unborn, since the three primary elements are products. Hence we are thrown back on the ru/dh/i signification of aja, according to which it means she-goat. But how can the avantara-prak/ri/ti be called a she-goat? To this question ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... crave leave to extend the Signification of the Word Sentiment, to the including tooth IMAGE and THOUGHT. For I think the Criticks should by all means have, before now, made that Division, and the omission has occasion'd the greatest Obscurity and Confusion in the ...
— A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) • Thomas Purney
... Duke of Devonshire. Encore! Bravo, Mr. HUBERT HERKOMER. You're are a-going it this year, you are, Sir! You've given the Duke all his Grace, and there's a kind of orange tint about him, which, just now, is not without its political signification. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, May 6, 1893 • Various
... present the following questions of construction: "1st. What is the legal signification to be given to the words, 'portions of the public lands which have been selected as the site for a city or town,' which occur in the preemption law of 1841, and which portions of the public lands are by said act exempted from its provisions? Do they ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... housekeeping and what not; to smile appropriately when she is disposed to be lively (that laughing at the jokes is the hardest part), and to model your conversation so as to suit her intelligence, knowing that a word used out of its downright signification will not be understood by your fair breakfast-maker. Women go through this simpering and smiling life, and bear it quite easily. Theirs is a life of hypocrisy. What good woman does not laugh at her husband's or father's jokes and stories ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... shew him how contrary his opinion was to mine, I put some meat into my mouth without salt and feigned to spit and sputter as much for the want of it, as he had done at it; yet all this proved of no signification to Friday; and it was a long while before he could endure salt in his meat or broth, and even then ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... dark uncertainty attendant upon delay, more lustrous (delighted), more radiant when given," is not more satisfactory than Mr. {201} HICKSON'S interpretation of this passage. But is it necessary that delighted should have the same signification in all the three ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 43, Saturday, August 24, 1850 • Various
... original. As to Dubois, he saw that this man had come to furnish him with the beginning of a most important secret, and he was meditating on the best means of making him furnish the end also. This was the signification of the crossed legs, the bitten lips, and the pinched nose. At last he appeared to have taken his resolution. A charming benevolence overspread his countenance, and turning toward the good man, who had ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... stone, till all had gradually sunk into desolation and ruin. Or he who to that Greek word which signifies 'that which will endure to be held up to and judged by the sunlight,' gave first its ethical signification of 'sincere,' 'truthful,' or as we sometimes say, 'transparent,' can we deny to him the poet's feeling and eye? Many a man had gazed, we are sure, at the jagged and indented mountain ridges of Spain, before ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... illustrates very clearly, not only the [30] earlier, but also a certain later influence of this element of natural fact, in the development of the gods of Greece. For the physical sense, latent in it, is the clue, not merely to the original signification of the incidents of the divine story, but also to the source of the peculiar imaginative expression which its persons subsequently retain, in the forms of the higher Greek sculpture. And this leads me to some general thoughts on the relation of Greek ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... declare, according to his Discretion, but subject to the Provisions of this Act and to Her Majesty's Instructions, either that he assents thereto in the Queen's Name, or that he withholds the Queen's Assent, or that he reserves the Bill for the Signification of ...
— The British North America Act, 1867 • Anonymous
... truths now unknown will certainly be revealed in another world. The woman of Samaria could not for a considerable time comprehend the metaphorical allusions of Christ; but when she had "found the Messiah," she was no longer at a loss to ascertain the signification of the stranger's assurance, that he could have given her, had she requested it, "living water." The disclosure of one fact, illustrated another, and in spiritual knowledge and attainment she went on doubtless with a rapidity ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... auction by Leigh and Sotherby [Transcriber's Note: Sotheby], &c. April 23d, 1792, 8vo." As usual I subjoin a few specimens of the collector's literary treasures in confirmation of the accuracy of Lysander's eulogy upon the collection——No. 709, Cowell's Interpreter; or, Booke containing the signification of words, first edition, ("rare to be met with.") Camb. by Legate, 1607, 4to.——No. 1951. Cent (Les) Nouvelles Nouvelles, ou pour mieux dire, Nouveaux Comptes a plaisance, par maniere de Joyeusete.——Lettres Gothiques, fig. et ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... but, on the other hand, they must admit that by far the greater portion of the sum of human knowledge has been derived from the experience and observation of men utterly unacquainted with science, in the ordinary signification of that term. This portion of our knowledge is also, in its practical application, the most valuable. In the most important branch of industry—agriculture—the labors of the purely scientific man have as yet borne but scant fruit; whilst the unaided efforts of the husbandman ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... and Agrippa on one side, and on the reverse this identical symbol of a crocodile under a palm tree. Often enough did I turn that coin over and wonder what it meant, and highly delighted was I to discover its signification at length. It was symbolical of the subjugation of Egypt, and was struck in compliment to Agrippa. Then most assuredly Agrippa had something to do with Nimes. I turned to a little history of the place that I had, and to my delight found that he it ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... luminary, the Sun, which enlightens the earth, and by its genial influence dispenses blessings to mankind." They called it also in the same lectures, an emblem of PRUDENCE. The word Prudentia means, in its original and fullest signification, Foresight; and, accordingly, the Blazing Star has been regarded as an emblem of Omniscience, or the All-seeing Eye, which to the Egyptian Initiates was the emblem of Osiris, the Creator. With the YŌD in the centre, it has the kabalistic meaning ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... first Christians called Christianity THE WAY, and explain the signification of ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker
... have hit the broader and deeper signification of economy, which is, in fact, the science of comparative values. In its highest sense, economy is a just judgment of the comparative value of things,—money only the means of enabling one to express that value. This is the reason why the whole matter is so full of difficulty,—why ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... and the people recognized themselves in him. He had their poetry and their aspirations, he espoused their claims, and the very name of his institute had at first a political signification: in Assisi as in most other Italian towns there were majores and minores, the popolo grasso and the popolo minuto; he resolutely placed himself among the latter. This political side of his apostolate needs to ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... same sign to signify two different objects can never indicate a common characteristic of the two, if we use it with two different modes of signification. For the sign, of course, is arbitrary. So we could choose two different signs instead, and then what would be left in common on ...
— Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus • Ludwig Wittgenstein
... be desirable to observe that, in modern times, the term "Realism" has acquired a signification wholly different from that which attached to it in the middle ages. We commonly use it as the contrary of Idealism. The Idealist holds that the phenomenal world has only a subjective existence, the Realist that it has an objective existence. I am not aware that any mediaeval ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... betrothed on the festival of Saint Nicodemus and wedded on Saint Synesius' day. A noble hound called Salve, or as we should say Welcome, spoke to him of the birth of his first born, and every dog in like manner had a name of some signification; thus Ann took it not at all amiss that he should call a fine young setter after her name. There had long been a Gred, short ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... for all the large inhabitants of the sea popularly grouped under that name. The Greek kaetos and Latin Balaena, though sometimes, especially in later classical writers, specifically applied to true cetaceans, were generally much more comprehensive in their signification than the modern word whale. This appears abundantly from the enumeration of the marine animals embraced by Oppian under the name , in the first book of ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... (Alfred me commanded to make). The language of the legend agrees perfectly with the age of King Alfred, and it seems to be the unhesitating opinion of all those who have investigated the subject that it was a personal ornament of the great West Saxon king. As to the manner of wearing it, and as to the signification of the enamelled figure, there has been the greatest diversity of opinion. Sir Francis Palgrave suggested that the figure was older than the setting. Perhaps it was a sacred object, and perhaps one of the presents of Pope ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... world's heavy hand had so ordained her, when neither the world nor she looked forward to this result. The letter was the symbol of her calling. Such helpfulness was found in her—so much power to do, and power to sympathise—that many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification. They said that it meant Abel, so strong was Hester ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... over her listener. Only in the past few moments had the signification of the story begun to dawn upon him. "Do you mean," he gasped, "that the girl whom ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... is not known. I should have told you that, in the Seminole language, "Econ," means hill or hills; "Chatti," is red; and the signification of "mico," is king: so that Econchatti-mico is, all together, King of the Red Hills. The soldiers who captured Nikkanochee disputed among themselves whether he ought not to be killed. Most of them were for destroying every Indian man, woman, or child they met; but ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... negligent phrase, many a stupid phrase, but the italicised phrase is the first hypocritical phrase I ever wrote. I plead guilty to the grave offence of having suggested that a work of art is more than a work of art. The picture is only a work of art, and therefore void of all ethical signification. In writing the abominable phrase "but it is a lesson" I admitted as a truth the ridiculous contention that a work of art may influence a man's moral conduct; I admitted as a truth the grotesque contention that to read Mdlle. de Maupin may cause ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... express act in different ways. For love has a wider signification than the others, since every dilection or charity is love, but not vice versa. Because dilection implies, in addition to love, a choice (electionem) made beforehand, as the very word denotes: and therefore dilection is not in the concupiscible power, but only in the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... unselfish and unaffected. It has been pointed out that one of the results of the extraordinary tyranny of authority is that words are absolutely distorted from their proper and simple meaning, and are used to express the obverse of their right signification. What is true about Art is true about Life. A man is called affected, nowadays, if he dresses as he likes to dress. But in doing that he is acting in a perfectly natural manner. Affectation, in such matters, consists in dressing according to the views of one's neighbour, whose views, ...
— The Soul of Man • Oscar Wilde
... serchinge by all meanes possible howe he may moste proffitte, dailie heringe hime to rede sumwhatt in thenglishe tongue, and advertisenge hime of the naturell and true kynde of pronuntiacn therof, expoundinge also and declaringe the etimologie and native signification of suche wordes as we have borowed of the Latines or Frenche menue, not evyn so comonly used in our quotidiene speche. Mr Cheney and Mr Charles in lyke wise endevoireth and emploieth themselves, accompanienge Mr Gregory in lerninge, amonge whome ther ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... Mahar & Poncarear may have been a Distinct nation, as they only Speek Some words of the osage which have the Same Signification 25 Days to St Ta fee S. of W. Cross the heads of Arkansies around the head of Kanzies River after Delivering a Speech informing thos Children of ours of the Change which had taken place, the wishes of our government to Cultivate friendship & good understanding, the method of ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... means "troubled,"; speaking of water, but which, according to Schiaparelli's Vocabulista, has also the meaning of "Raunak"amenitas. As however "Ranakah" taken as fem. of "Ranak" shares with Raunakah the signification of "troubled," it may perhaps also be a parallel form to the latter ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... meaningless, fantastic, and oppressive, he invents an elaborate system for compelling each of his sections and groups to begin with a letter of the alphabet, determined beforehand, the letters being selected so as to compose words having "a synthetic or sympathetic signification," and as close a relation as possible to the section or part to which ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... while Bach was writing the G minor and A minor fugues (I am not speaking of vocal music) some smaller men were working at what was destined to grow into the symphony, sonata and quartet. These terms are used here in their present-day signification. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries such words as symphony and overture, and suite and sonata, were interchangeable; but that does not at all concern us here. The symphony or sonata or ...
— Haydn • John F. Runciman
... seven northerly, and Acer shall disappear.' Shall I stride the ground so many steps, or is there a mystic and hidden signification couched ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... employed in various senses, which, though they cover a wide range, are yet very closely allied to one another, and to the initial conception in which they all have birth. Its primitive signification, as its structure(6) indicates, is manliness. Now what preeminently distinguishes, not so much the human race from the lower animals, as the full-grown and strong man from the feebler members of his own race, is the power of resolute, strenuous, ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... authority is needed for this designation. War, as conducted under International Law, between two organized nations, is in all respects a duel, according to the just signification of this word,—differing from that between two individuals only in the number of combatants. The variance is of proportion merely, each nation being an individual who appeals to the sword as Arbiter; and in each case the combat is subject to rules constituting a code by which the two parties ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner
... Society," published in 1864, "gag" is duly included, and defined to be "language introduced by an actor into his part." Long before this, however, the word had issued from the stage-door, and its signification had become ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... his presence she seemed only to hear him; in his absence, musingly, she started from silence to exclaim on the acuteness of his genius and the accuracy of his figures. Soon the tempter at Mainwaring's heart gave signification to these praises, soon this adventurer became his most intimate friend. Scarcely knowing why, never ascribing the change to her sister, poor Susan wept, amazed at Mainwaring's transformation. No care now for the new books from London, or the roses in the garden; the music on the instrument was ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... we understood their language," said Fritz, "we would know that each of their different cries has a peculiar signification of its own. Perhaps, they are talking together sociably about all ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... same, and when, during the heat of the action, any of the flags were destroyed, or the halliards shot away, I was astonished at the readiness with which he ordered one signal to be substituted for another, according as the signification might answer the purpose, without ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... said the Rector, taking a seat near her, "I don't know what it is that has risen between us. We look as if we had quarrelled; and I thought we had made up our minds never to quarrel." The words were rather soft in their signification, but Mr Morgan could not help speaking severely, as was natural to his voice; which was perhaps, in the present case, all the ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... INTERVAL, by which the duration of rational discourse and conduct is to be estimated, although of sufficiently precise meaning, is yet susceptible of the most extended signification; and we speak with equal correctness when we say the interval of a moment and of a thousand years. The time necessary to comprise a LUCID interval has not, to the best of my belief, been limited by medical writers or legal authorities; it must however comprehend a portion sufficient ...
— A Letter to the Right Honorable the Lord Chancellor, on the Nature and Interpretation of Unsoundness of Mind, and Imbecility of Intellect • John Haslam
... demonstrating the method of cutting a line in two equal parts. He draws, for instance, a black line of an inch in length: this, which in itself is a particular line, is nevertheless with regard to its signification general, since, as it is there used, it represents all particular lines whatsoever; so that what is demonstrated of it is demonstrated of all lines, or, in other words, of a line in general. And, as THAT PARTICULAR LINE becomes ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... have lost their signification, this passage certainly means that the Transvaal must remain a British colony, but that England will be prepared to grant it responsible government, more especially if it will consent to a confederation scheme. Mr. Gladstone, however, in a communication ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... sympathy with our surroundings. We have heard and we can never forget the sorrows of those who are 'one man' with us. There is more in that word 'persecutions' than this, as no doubt {173} you have found. But this, I think, is part of its signification, isn't it? . ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson
... Mongols and Tibetans. The winter chapkan, or long tunic, of Upper India, a form of dress which, I believe, correctly represents that of the Mongol hosts, and is probably derived from them, is almost universally of quilted cotton.[1] This signification would also facilitate the transfer of meaning to the substance now called buckram, for that is used as ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... experience, and the contrariety, which Archbishop Tillotson alleged in the quotation with which Mr. Hume opens his Essay, it is certainly not that experience, nor that contrariety, which Mr. Hume himself intended to object. And short of this I know no intelligible signification which can be affixed to the term "contrary to experience," but one, viz., that of not having ourselves experienced anything similar to the thing related, or such things not being generally experienced by others. I say "not generally" for to state concerning the fact in question, ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... wayghtes is derived from the latter noun, and originally signified hautbois, (or hautbois, as we have it in English,) of which it is not unworthy remark, there is no singular number. From the instrument its signification was, after a time, transferred to the performers themselves; concerning whom, it is well known,.the appellation is now applied to all who follow the practice above adverted to, especially those who, at the approach of. Christmas, salute us ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various
... translations of names; French names, too, were translated in the same manner into English equivalents: and, at other times, the sound of a Latin or a French (Anglo-Norman) name was transferred to an English representative having a somewhat similar sound, without the slightest reference to the original signification. Who, for example, in the name of MONTAGU now recognises instinctively the original allusion to a mountain with its sharply peaked crests, and so discerns the probable allusive origin of the sharp triple points of the devices on the old Montacute shield, No. 20? It is ...
— The Handbook to English Heraldry • Charles Boutell
... maintained that the contemplation of the perfection of the Deity sufficed to procure all wisdom and knowledge; that the Bible was the key to the theory of all diseases, and that it was necessary to search into the Apocalypse to know the signification of magic medicine. The man who blindly obeyed the will of God, and who succeeded in identifying himself with the celestial intelligences, possessed the philosopher's stone — he could cure all diseases, and prolong life to as many centuries as he pleased; it being by the very ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... up-and-down motion, or that it looks at all like those things on the top of the sea. The motion of the surface of the sea falls within that formula, and hence is a special variety of wave motion, and the term wave has acquired in popular use this signification and nothing else. So that when one speaks ordinarily of a wave or undulatory motion, one immediately thinks of something heaving up and down, or even perhaps of something breaking on the shore. But when we assert ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... medium possesses these properties in some form or other, or some equivalent for them, it may be said with moderate security to be incompetent to transmit waves. But if we make this latter statement, one must be prepared to extend to the terms elasticity and inertia their very largest and broadest signification, so as to include any possible kind of restoring force and any possible kind of persistence ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... pastorals; the main exception being that of Ronsard, who collected his eclogues under the title of "Les Bucoliques." In general practice the word is almost a synonym for pastoral poetry, but has come to bear a slightly more agricultural than shepherd signification, so that the "Georgics" of Virgil has grown to seem almost more "bucolic" than ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... reverence, peradventure fancying that St Bridget herself might be again embodied before her; but the beldame went straight to the carriage, addressing herself to the invalid within by pointing to her breast, and making divers motions of the like signification, which were not easy to be understood, even by the party for whom they were intended. The prophetess seemed fully to comprehend that her symbolic representations were unintelligible, and no fitting place being at hand whereon they could be readily portrayed, she ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... one saw her as the hob-nailed shoes trooped out of church, and soon she was entirely alone, kneeling still in her hiding-place, and whispering half-aloud the omitted morning prayer, whose heartfelt signification had, she felt, been neglected for a ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... orange pigments was once so deficient, that in some old treatises on the subject of colours, they are not even mentioned. This may have arisen, not merely from their paucity, but from the unsettled signification of the term orange, as well as from improperly calling these pigments reds, yellows, &c. In these days, however, orange pigments are sufficiently numerous to merit a chapter to themselves; they indeed comprise some of the best colours on ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... incomparable style, forcing, straining the language to make it render his idea, darting at one bound to the sublimest height by use of the simplest terms, which he, so to speak, bore away with him, wresting them from their natural and proper signification. "There, in spite of that great heart of hers, is that princess so admired and so beloved; there, such as Death has made her for us!" Bossuet alone ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... living God, who by the Indians is styled 'Yohewah.' The seventy-two interpreters have translated this word so as to signify, Sir, Lord, Master, applying to mere earthly potentates, without the least signification or relation to that great and awful name, which describes ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... appear the more decent" in the eyes of the natives. The proceedings consisted of marching of men laden with yams tied on to sticks, of considerable speech-making, and various performances of which the signification could not be understood, and then the prince made his appearance. He seated himself with a few of his friends on the ground, and some women wound a long piece of cloth round them, and after some more speech-making and mysterious pantomime ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... making a greater merchandise out of these things and having more shops for them than at Paris of stuffs or any other things, and to the most open simony giving the name and support of procuration, and to gluttony that of sustentation: as if God, apart from the signification of epithets, could not know the intentions of these wretched souls, but after the manner of men must permit himself to be deceived by the names of things. Which, together with many other things of which we will say nothing, so greatly displeased the Jew, that as he was a ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... by overarching trees leads from this plateau to the third shrine. We pass a torii and beyond it come to a stone monument covered with figures of monkeys chiselled in relief. What the signification of this monument is, even our guide cannot explain. Then another torii. It is of wood; but I am told it replaces one of metal, stolen in the night by thieves. Wonderful thieves! that torii must have weighed at least a ton! More stone lanterns; ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... name to one of the children, would become Jill. The fall of Jack, and the subsequent fall of Jill, simply represent the vanishing of one moon spot after another, as the moon wanes. But the old Norse myth had a deeper signification than merely an explanation of the moon spots. Hjuki is derived from the verb jakka, to heap or pile together, to assemble and increase; and Bil, from bila, to break up or dissolve. Hjuki and Bil, therefore, ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... As the origin and signification of the day and month, names of the Maya calendar, and of the symbols used to represent these time periods, are now being discussed by students of Mexican and Central American paleography, I deem it advisable to present the result of my investigations in this line. The present paper, however, ...
— Day Symbols of the Maya Year • Cyrus Thomas
... "The signification of Eau-douce is sweet-water, and it is the manner in which the French express fresh-water," rejoined ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... councils or synods where the omission or addition of a word or a phrase might not have terminated an interminable logomachy! At the council of Basle, for the convenience of the disputants, John de Secubia drew up a treatise of undeclined words, chiefly to determine the signification of the particles from, by, but, and except, which it seems were perpetually occasioning fresh disputes among the Hussites and the Bohemians. Had Jerome of Prague known, like our Shakspeare, the virtue of an IF, or agreed with Hobbes, that he should not have been so positive in the use ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... preferred the former acceptation of the term: the latter, and more extensive signification is that in which I mean to use it. I do this by virtue of the right I claim for every author, to give whatever provisional definition he pleases of his own subject. But sufficient reasons will, I believe, ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... That is about a fifth, as in the alphabet, where there are six vowels among twenty-six letters. It is possible, therefore, that the document is written in the language of our country, and that only the signification of each letter is changed. If it has been modified in regular order, and a b is always represented by an l, and o by a v, a g by a k, an u by an r, etc., I will give up my judgeship if I do not read it. What can I do better than follow the method ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... not with us to elevate it? How often has it not happened that names originally given in reproach have been afterwards adopted as a title of honor by those against whom it was used?—Methodists, Quakers, etc. But as a proof that no unfavorable signification attached to the word when first employed, I may mention, that, long before the slave-trade began, travellers found the blacks on the coast of Africa preferring to be called Negroes" (see Purchas' Pilgrimage ...). And in all the pre-slavetrade ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... fertile and well cultivated; grain and vegetables are grown and early potatoes are exported. A large part of the island is under grass, affording pasture for cattle. The well-known term "Alderney cattle,'' however, has lost in great measure its former signification of a distinctive breed. Alderney is included in the bailiwick of Guernsey. It has a court consisting of a judge and six jurats, attorney-general, prevot, greffiero and sergent; but as a judicial court it is subordinate to ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... ambiguity of that phrase, engaged; which, according to the variety of its signification, is or may be variously rendered. He adorned His heart; He applied His heart; He directed His ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... George, in nowise ruffled by the Don's reiteration of the term "pirate," which in those days carried nothing like the opprobrious signification that it bears to-day. "It matters not; for I shall cause your ship to be thoroughly searched from stem to stern before I destroy her. But as you seem to be imbued with so very strong an animus against me, I must put you in confinement while your ship is being searched, lest you should ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... past, and all that it means to various classes of men in the present, would be a task of no small magnitude, and one quite beyond the scope of such a volume as this. But it is not impossible to give within small compass a brief indication, at least, of what the word once signified, to show how its signification has undergone changes, and to point out to what sort of a discipline or group of disciplines educated men are apt to apply the word, notwithstanding their differences of opinion as to the truth or falsity of this or that particular doctrine. Why certain ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton |
