"Signification" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that so many private interviews had some signification; and Mrs. Frost found her talking it over with her brother, and conjecturing so much, that granny thought it best to supply the key, thinking, perhaps, that a little jealousy would do Jem no harm. But the effect on him was to produce a fit of hearty laughter, as he remembered poor Lord ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... utterance to the consciousness that his kingdom is destined to extend far beyond the limits of Israel, in words which, like so many of the prophecies, may be translated in the present tense, but are obviously future in signification—the prophet placing himself in imagination in the midst of the time of ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... me, the angels would understand the words 'And Abraham gave up the ghost.' And the words which follow would have for them a far different signification than to us. For with us 'old age' presents the idea of the gradual wasting away and deterioration of the powers of the body it is the shadow from the darkened future, foretelling the end of life. But angels ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... the signification of words alter in the course of a century. There was a time when all persons in England, below the rank of an Esquire, were divided into Gentlemen, Yeomen and Rascals. The former word is now used to signify the individuals ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... The signification of these facts is as follows: as soon as, in the course of development, the conjugated nuclei divide again into two cells, as in Figs. 7 to 10, of Plate I, each of these two cells contains almost the same quantity of paternal as maternal chromatin. We do not say exactly ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... Lawson, "I do not know as I exactly understand the signification of that term, as applied by you in the ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... to assert that they were indications of the extension of the influence of the pollen beyond the egg and its product. This would not, however, explain the formation of fruits intermediate in size and colour between those of crossed parents. The signification of the coalescence of the polar nuclei is not explained by these new facts, but it is noteworthy that the second male-cell is said to unite sometimes with the apical polar nucleus, the sister of the egg, before the union of this with the basal polar one. The idea of the endosperm as a second ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... followed the ceremony. I was near him when he took the hand of Delia, and heard him say—not—"I congratulate you"—but "May your life be a happy one." The tone was earnest and feeling, such as a brother might use to a beloved sister. I held that tone long afterwards in my memory, studying its signification. It had in it nothing of regret, or pain, or sadness, as if he were losing something, but simply expressed the regard and tender interest of a sincere well wisher. And so that great trial was at an end for him. He had struggled manfully with a great enemy ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... may be—at something beyond bodily sense, at such notions as being, essence, existence: he reasons upon these notions, and extends the scope of his once merely physical vocabulary so as to comprehend them. Why should he not? If we are to be anchored hard and fast to the signification of primaeval language, how are we to obtain an intellectual basis for "the not us which makes for righteousness?" Do not the anti-metaphysicists themselves unconsciously metaphysicize? Does not their fundamental assumption—that ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... the dinge an sich which are the causes of the latter, his monistic successors all look for it either after experience, as its absolute completion, or else consider it to be even now implicit within experience as its ideal signification. Kant and his successors look, in short, in diametrically opposite directions. Do not be misled by Kant's admission of theism into his system. His God is the ordinary dualistic God of Christianity, to whom ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... me. So 'mortifying groans' in The Merchant of Venice, I, i, 82, and 'mortified man' in Macbeth, V, ii, 5. Words directly derived from Latin are often used, by Shakespeare and sixteenth century writers, in a signification peculiarly close to the root notion ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... three signals, Nos. 222-4, for doubling the van, doubling the rear, and for the rear to double the rear. From Hoste also it borrows the method of giving battle to a superior force, which the French writer apparently borrowed from Torrington. The signification of the signal is as follows: 'No. 232. When inferior in number to the enemy, and to prevent being doubled upon in the van or rear, for the van squadron to engage the headmost ships of the enemy's line, the rear their sternmost, and the centre that of the enemy, whose surplus ships will ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... regards materialistic atomism, it is one of the best-refuted theories that have been advanced, and in Europe there is now perhaps no one in the learned world so unscholarly as to attach serious signification to it, except for convenient everyday use (as an abbreviation of the means of expression)—thanks chiefly to the Pole Boscovich: he and the Pole Copernicus have hitherto been the greatest and most successful opponents of ocular evidence. For while Copernicus has persuaded us to believe, ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... body? If we will speak properly, He has none; yet is it no absurdity, speaking improperly, to ascribe a body unto God, that is, as the word is taken improperly and generally (and yet not very absurdly) for a true substance, in a large signification, ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... original signification, they presided merely over music, song, and dance; but with the progress of civilization the arts and sciences claimed their special presiding divinities, and we see these graceful creations, in later times, sharing among them various functions, ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... but the future foretold, which pertained to the City of God; for whatever is said of these men who are not its citizens is given either that it may profit or be made glorious by a comparison with what is different. Yet it is not to be supposed that all that is recorded has some signification; but those things which have no signification of their own are interwoven for the sake of the things which are significant. Only by the ploughshare is the earth cut in furrows; but that this may be, other parts of the plough are necessary. ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... secondly, for the more proper expressing of some words or phrases of ancient usage in terms more suitable to the language of the present times, and the clearer explanation of some other words and phrases, that were either of doubtful signification, or otherwise liable to misconstruction: Or thirdly, for a more perfect rendering of such portions of holy Scripture, as are inserted into the Liturgy; which, in the Epistles and Gospels especially, and in sundry other places, are now ordered to be read according ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... that his mother belonged to him alone, he could speak to her of Cecile and of his supreme joy. Jack talked with enthusiasm of his love, but soon saw that his mother did not understand him. She had a certain amount of sentiment, but love had not the same signification for her that it had for him. She listened to him with the same interest that she would have felt in the third act at the Gymnase, when the Ingenue in a white dress, with rose-colored ribbons, listened to the declaration of a lover ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... name of the village, takes its origin, according to an etymology given by Varro,[3] from the furrow which the plow traced about the habitations of the earliest dwellers. But what is of more interest to us is that the legal signification of Urbs and Roma was different. The former was the village comprised within the sacred enclosure; the latter was the total agglomeration of habitations which composed the village, properly[4] so called, and the outskirts, or suburbs. The powers of certain magistrates ceased with the sacred ...
— Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic • Andrew Stephenson
... also be a Mayan word. It may be a nominal form from the verb tzen-tah, and would then have the signification, "a built-up place," or one well stocked with provisions; or, it may be a patronymic from the Tzentals, the tribe which occupied this region at the time, as ...
— The Battle and the Ruins of Cintla • Daniel G. Brinton
... beautiful. She was not even what empty-headed people, unaware of the real signification of the term, call "pretty." She was interesting—will ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... game, or anything else, is announced by riding rapidly to and fro, or in a circle. The idea that there is a difference in the signification of these two directions of riding appears, according to many of the Dakota Indians of the Missouri Valley, to be erroneous. Parties away from their regular encampment are generally in search of some special object, such as game, or of another ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... particular sum of money, we mean not only to express the amount of the metal pieces of which it is composed, but to include in its signification some obscure reference to the goods which can be had in exchange for them, the wealth or revenue which it in this case denotes, is equal only to one of the two values which are thus intimated somewhat ambiguously by the same word, and to the latter more properly than to the former, to the money's ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... In 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, ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... what is Latin for Constitution, will not make you a particle the wiser; I will, therefore, explain it in the vernacular tongue.—Constitution then, in its primary, abstract, and true signification, is a concatenation or coacervation of simple, distinct parts, of various qualities or properties, united, compounded, or constituted in such a manner, as to form or compose a system or body, when viewed in its aggregate or general nature. In its common, or generally received, ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low
... language, I haue first expressed it in the same termes wherein it is originally written whether it were a Latine, Italian, Spanish or Portugall discourse, or whatsoeuer els, and thereunto in the next roome haue annexed the signification and translation of the wordes in English. And to the ende that those men which were the paynefull and personall trauellers might reape that good opinion, and iust commendation which they haue deserued, and further that euery man might answere for himselfe, iustifie his reports, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... had constituted her mistress the plenipotentiary. For such compliance the manners of the time may, to a certain extent, furnish La Querouaille with an excuse. At Versailles, ideas of honour and morality had lost their ordinary signification: the men envied generally the lot of Amphitryon, and the women lost every instinct of modesty when it became a question about satisfying a caprice of Jupiter. Breathing such a vitiated atmosphere, and having so many lamentable examples before her eyes, Mademoiselle ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... of thicke fogges which that Countrey is much subiect vnto, came flying into our ships, which causeth vs to suppose, that the Countrey is both more tollerable, and also habitable within, then the outward shore maketh shew or signification.[52] ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... As stated above (A. 1), continence has a twofold signification. In one way it denotes cessation from all venereal pleasures; and if continence be taken in this sense, it is greater than temperance considered absolutely, as may be gathered from what we said above (Q. 152, A. 5) concerning the preeminence of virginity over chastity considered absolutely. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... large building of the King's Mews, where his Majesty's hawks were kept. Two hundred years later, bluff King Hal would turn out the hawks to make room for his horses; but as yet the word mews had its proper signification of a place where hawks were mewed or confined. At the corner of the Mews, between it and the patty-maker's, ran up Saint Martin's Lane; its western boundary being the long blank wall of the Mews, and its eastern a few houses, and then Saint Martin's Church. Along the Strand, ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... Doctor Hutchinson proceeds: "The judgment I made of it was, that the poor old woman, being an Irish Papist, and not ready in the signification of English words, had entangled herself by a superstitious belief, and doubtful answers about Saints and Charms; and seeing what advantages Mr. Mather made of it, I was afraid I saw part of the ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... Sanskrit in Malay confined to words which have been adopted in comparative purity. An extension of the sphere of research reveals whole groups of Malay words which seem to be formed from some Sanskrit root, and to retain to some extent its signification. Thus the Sanskrit root ju (to push on, impel) may perhaps be detected in such words as juwang, to rush against; jungur, prominent, a beak; jungang, prominent (of teeth); juring, sharp, pointed; jurus, to pull, course, direction; ...
— A Manual of the Malay language - With an Introductory Sketch of the Sanskrit Element in Malay • William Edward Maxwell
... 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
... that lay ahead seemed to add intensity to their demonstrations of personal devotion. The most dramatic moment at Balmoral—if for once the word so hackneyed and misused by journalists may be given its true signification—the most dramatic moment was when the Ulster leader and the leader of the whole Unionist Party each grasped the other's hand in view of the assembled multitude, as though formally ratifying a compact made thus publicly on the eve of battle. It was the consummation of ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... you might ha' known you'd be always welcome here, without waiting for asking. Why, Molly! I look upon you as a kind of a daughter more than Madam there!' dropping his voice a little, and perhaps supposing that the child's babble would drown the signification of his words.—'Nay, you need not look at me so pitifully—she does ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... philosophy. First of all, he 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; ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... memory that he had been 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, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... an enthusiast for the Basque language, produces several words to show the sublimity contained in their signification: for instance, he says, "the radical name of the Moon, combined with other terms, gives occasion for superb expressions, full of thought, and of a character which no modern language could furnish: thus—ilarquia, the moon, signifies its light, or ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... faculty,—that power of acting in a specific way which appertains to a thing by virtue of its special constitution; that mode of action or operation which is proper to any organ, faculty, office structure, etc. (This is the most usual signification of ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth
... unknown to Egyptian lapidaries before the Greek period. Scarabaei and the subjects engraved on them have not as yet been fully classified and catalogued.[55] The subjects consist of simple combinations of lines; of scrolls; of interlacings without any precise signification; of symbols to which the owner attached a mysterious meaning, unknown to everyone but himself; of the names and titles of individuals; of royal ovals, which are historically interesting; of good wishes; of pious ejaculations; and of ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... which she had often successfully practised upon Emilie, she, for that reason, suspected that Emilie tried upon her. And then the utmost ingenuity was employed to torture words into strange meanings: she would misinterpret the plainest expressions, or attribute to them some double, mysterious signification. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... Custom.—I shall be glad if any of your readers can inform me of the origin and signification, of the custom of carrying about decorated apples on New Year's Day, and presenting them to the friends of the bearers. The apples have three skewers of wood stuck into them so as to form a tripod foundation, and their sides are ornamented ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 14. Saturday, February 2, 1850 • Various
... in them nothing of self. All that has rapport to self is no more, and God is all. Being passed into God, the soul is changed and transformed in him. This is what the mystics call Resurrection. But the word used in this way, does not bear its usual signification. To resuscitate is to revive the former life. But in this case, the will, or natural life is consumed, and gives place to the will or life of God. Thus the Holy Spirit operates effectively in the soul, transforming it into the likeness of the Son ...
— Letters of Madam Guyon • P. L. Upham
... adopted by Dr. Hawksworth (1766). The above paragraph in the original editions (1726) takes another form, commencing:—"I told him that should I happen to live in a kingdom where lots were in vogue," &c. The names Tribnia and Langdon an not mentioned, and the "close stool" and its signification do not occur. ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... that means simply a certain limited or definite period which had a beginning, whereas eternity means an unlimited and undefinable period which had no beginning;—that his seeming argument was no argument, but merely a sort of verbal play on this difference of signification in the words;—further, that man could conceive of an infinite series, whether extended in infinite space, or subsisting in infinite time, just as well as he could conceive of any other infinity, and in ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... let me tell you that I have cut myself free entirely—on every side. I have now, no connection of any kind with the tenets of the Church. For the future such matters have not the smallest signification for me. ...
— Rosmerholm • Henrik Ibsen
... agreeably to Moses. Set side by side, the mere surfaces could never unite in any harmony of design. Therefore one must go below the surface, and bring up the supposed secondary, or still more remote meaning,—that diviner signification held in reserve, in recessu divinius aliquid, latent in some stray touch of Homer, or figure of speech in the books ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... reminded by it of a custom[19] which has for centuries prevailed among bargainers in the East, of signifying numbers by touching the joints of each other's fingers under a cloth. Every joint has a special signification; and the entire system is undoubtedly a development from finger counting. The buyer or seller will by this method express 6 or 60 by stretching out the thumb and little finger and closing the rest of the fingers. The addition of the fourth finger to the two thus used signifies 7 ...
— The Number Concept - Its Origin and Development • Levi Leonard Conant
... love God with one's whole heart has a twofold signification. First, actually, so that a man's whole heart be always actually directed to God: this is the perfection of heaven. Secondly, in the sense that a man's whole heart be habitually directed to God, so that it consent to nothing contrary ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... they knew not how to conduct themselves in so novel a situation, and Bonaparte confounded them so much by the union of promises and threats, that in giving up, they believed they were gaining, and rejoiced at the word peace, as much as if this word had preserved its old signification. The illuminations, the reverences, the dinners, and firing of cannon to celebrate this peace, were exactly the same as formerly: but far from cicatrizing the wounds, it introduced into the government which signed it a most certain and ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... been already said, that he is in the service of Ludwig Halberger. So is he, and has been ever since the hunter-naturalist settled in Paraguay; in the capacity of steward, or as there called mayor-domo; a term of very different signification from the major-domo or house-steward of European countries, with dress and duties differing as well. No black coat, or white cravat, wears he of Spanish America, no spotless stockings, or soft slipper shoes. Instead, a costume more resembling ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... cell. At the first turn, by the door, he struck his foot against something which he upset. It was a pitcher of water, which, with a loaf of bread, had been put in that unusual place. The sight was as distinct in its signification as a yawning grave. His door was to open upon him no more. He was not again to see a human face. The Commandant was to be absent awhile, and, on returning, to find ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... her heart; they were no longer the ordinary imperfect symbols of thoughts, they were transformed into a more intense means of expression, transcendant, quivering with life, of infinitely ampler signification. ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... of this plate I will insert here Rosny's comment, that the reader may have an opportunity of comparing his view of its signification with the opinion I ...
— Notes on Certain Maya and Mexican Manuscripts • Cyrus Thomas
... he said, softly—"Well!—'and yet'—as I have observed, the Muse may, like the Delphic oracle, utter words without apparent signification, which only the skilled proficient at her altar may be able to unravel. Therefore,—in this precise manner, my suggestion may be wholly without ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... swept away instead, the whole world would have been in commotion, and yet, a few thousand years hence, even such an event would have passed out of man's memory; and a future Gerald Massey might be found speculating upon the astronomical character and signification of the Isles of Wight, Jersey, or Man, arguing, perhaps, that this latter island had not contained a real living race of men but "belonged to astronomical mythology," was a "Man submerged in celestial waters." If the legend of the lost Atlantis is only "like those of Airyana-Vaejo and ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • 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 authorize selections by individuals ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... 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 Writings of those who have discours'd on ...
— A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) • Thomas Purney
... and ignorance itself rather facilitates the practice; but that practice is most dangerous to the language. When a democratic people doubles the meaning of a word in this way, they sometimes render the signification which it retains as ambiguous as that which it acquires. An author begins by a slight deflection of a known expression from its primitive meaning, and he adapts it, thus modified, as well as he can to his subject. A second writer twists the ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... was ordered to worship at Jerusalem, Jehovah the true and 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 the ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... 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
... the constant interchange of visits and messages between the two branches of the tribe. They at first addressed him by his name; giving him his title of captain, with a French accent: but they soon gave him a title of their own; which, as usual with Indian titles, had a peculiar signification. In the case of the captain, it had somewhat ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... but the perpetuation of human imbecility, ignorance and error. To them it represents neither shadow nor substance, neither phenomenon nor thing, neither what is ideal nor what is real; yet is it the name without full faith in which there could be no religion. If to the name God some rational signification cannot be attached away goes, or at least away ought to go, that belief in something supernatural which is 'the fundamental principle of all false metaphysics.' 'No such belief can for a moment be entertained by those who see in nature ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... reached by a process of reasoning, as well as to those that bear the marks of such a process. But this uncertainty vanishes on closer examination. We then see that there is always an authority at the basis of dogma, which gives it to those who recognise that authority the signification of a fundamental truth "quae sine scelere prodi non poterit" (Cicero Quaest. Acad. IV. 9). But therewith at the same time is introduced into the idea of dogma a social element (see Biedermann, Christl. Dogmatik. 2. Edit. I. p. 2 f.); the confessors ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... stone; but the paws, which are thrown out about fifty feet in front, are constructed of masonry. The Sphinx of Sais, formed of a block of red granite, twenty-two feet long, is now in the Egyptian Museum in the Louvre. There has been much speculation among the learned, concerning the signification of these figures. Winckelmann observes that they have the head of a female, and the body of a male, which has led to the conjecture that they are intended as emblems of the generative powers of nature, which the old mythologies are accustomed to indicate by the mystical union of the two ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... comprehend such a singular type of man. Did he think all that he said? Had he done all that he related? Was he a madman, a comedian, or simply a gabbler, as Manilof in his quality of man of action insisted, giving to the word a most contemptuous signification. ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... our ancestors in various senses, but here it means a deed or action only; thus Sir T. Elyot, as Mr Todd notes, speaks of "the jests or acts of princes and captains." In fact, this is the general signification of the term, though it has sometimes a more particular application. Gest and jest are the same word, though ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... the Edda it is called Helim, that is, Hell; but as the word Hell has now a different signification, it was necessary to invent here a word ...
— The Death of Balder • Johannes Ewald
... twelve consonants. Good! that is the normal proportion. 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 ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... handling somewhat technical terms, or with words (like thing, affair, condition) which loosely cover a multitude of meanings. (You may, however, concentrate your efforts upon some one meaning of words in the latter group.) Select words with a fairly definite signification, and express this as precisely as you can. You may afterwards consult a dictionary for means of checking up on what you have done. But in consulting it think only of idea, not of form. You are not training yourself in dictionary definitions, but in ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... the word in its special but most common signification—is debasing. Compensation, so far as it goes, is found in the abandonment by those communities among whom it is most rife of certain gross amusements, such as cock-fighting and the prize-ring. Bull-and bear-baiting, too, so prominent among the deliciae of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... darkey showed the half insensible Italian the full signification of "John up de orchard," and likewise of "what for," and ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... one who has experiened them? The human soul has little power of imparting to another its deepest feelings. We may speak, but who will believe, or sense our experiences? An ancient writer says: "There are many kinds of voices in the world, but none of them without signification. Therefore, if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... less eagerness on the part of the young monarch to behold his bride than on that of his subjects. We will not say that he had exactly imbibed the principles of a libertine, but it is well known that he was a gallant in the most liberal signification of the term, and that his amours extended to all ranks. He had, therefore, until he had well nigh reached his thirtieth year, evaded the curb of matrimony; and it was not until the necessity of his marriage, for the welfare of his country, was urged upon him by his ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... 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. Moreover, whatever the value of Goethe's labours in that field, they ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... learnt not only to say and sing her Breviary, but to know the signification in English. There were translations of the Lord's Prayer and Creed in the hands of all careful and thoughtful people, even among the poor, if they had a good parish priest, or had come under the influence ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... interrogators were as much in the dark as ever. Whether the Gapo was fish, flesh, or fowl, air, fire, or water, they could not even guess. There was but one upon the galatea besides the Indian himself who knew the signification of the word which had created such a sensation among the crew, and ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... life, who is steeped in the sense of style, and who has a superb passion for beauty. Some of d'Annunzio's novels were a revelation, dazzling. And who that began even "Il Fuoco" could resist it? How adult, how subtle, how (in the proper signification) refined, seems the sexuality of d'Annunzio after the timid, gawky, infantile, barbaric sexuality of our "island story"! People are not far wrong on the Continent when they say, as they do say, that English novelists cannot deal with an Englishwoman—or could not up till a few years ago. ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... Milton differs from that of Dante as the hieroglyphics of Egypt differed from the picture-writing of Mexico. The images which Dante employs speak for themselves; they stand simply for what they are. Those of Milton have a signification which is often discernible only to the initiated. Their value depends less on what they directly represent than on what they remotely suggest. However strange, however grotesque, may be the appearance which Dante undertakes to describe, he never shrinks ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... fighting man's idea of a contraction! Why should a man have a special idea of a contraction when he is fighting; or why should he think of such a thing at all under such circumstances? Perhaps 'fighting man' is slang too. No; it is not given here. Either I mistook the word, or it has some signification unknown to the compiler ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... belonging to the poets of La Champagne, whom she expelled therefrom in order to obtain a lodging for her work-bag. She is very amiable, and I must really be a monster not to like her. I can only endure her—in the severest signification of the word. But what would one not endure for Jeanne's sake? Her presence lends to the City of Books a charm which seems to hover about it even after she has gone. She is very ignorant; but she is so finely ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... suggested itself as the antithesis of "rude" just before applied to day; the civil, accommodating, concealing night being thus contrasted with the unaccommodating, revealing day. It is to be remarked, moreover, that as this epithet civil is, through its ordinary signification, brought into connexion with what precedes it, so is it, through its unusual meaning of grave, brought into connexion with what follows, it thus furnishing that equivocation of sense of which our great dramatist is so fond, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853 • Various
... majeste entretient en ce pays, defendeurs et accuses. Information faite contre les dits accuses, les 25, 27 et 28 fevrier dernier, decrets d'ajournement personel allencontre deux donne le cinq mars ensuivant; exploits de signification faite a leur auberge le neuvieme ensuivant; autres exploits de signification faite au quartier ou est la compagnie du dit de Lorimier le 16 ensuivant, et en la ville des 3 R. au domicile du dit de Noyan quartier de sa compagnie du 15 du mesme mois, arrest du 27 ensuivant rendu sur ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... through those windows of the soul, her serene, mild, tender, blue eyes. I saw that the face was colourless, and that the beautiful lips, out of which the words that had alarmed me more by their accents than their direct signification, were quivering in a way that their lovely mistress could not control. Tears, as large as heavy drops of rain, too, were trembling on the long silken eye-lashes, while the very attitude of the precious ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... knew man in general much better than Crabbe did; but he nowhere shows anything like Crabbe's power of seizing and reproducing man in particular. Crabbe is one of the first and certainly one of the greatest of the "realists" who, exactly reversing the old philosophical signification of the word, devote themselves to the particular only. Yet of the three small volumes by which he, after his introduction to Burke, made his reputation, and on which he lived for a quarter of a century, the first and the last display comparatively little of this peculiar quality. "The ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... them a few months. They seemed to have a foreboding of the fate which awaited them. On conspicuous places on the rocks they wrote in large letters, "Go to Spaniards' Harbour. Hasten! hasten! We are suffering from sickness—we are nearly starving!" Words of the same signification were written on paper, and buried in bottles where they might most ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... As to the signification of this fabulous divinity, all are agreed that, by Apollo, the sun is understood in general, though several poetical fictions have relation only to the sun, and not to Apollo. The great attributes of this deity ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... conveyed.] Meaning [Thing signified.] — N. meaning; signification, significance; sense, expression; import, purport; force; drift, tenor, spirit, bearing, coloring; scope. [important part of the meaning] substance; gist, essence, marrow, spirit &c 5. matter; subject, subject matter; argument, text, sum and substance. general ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Satanellas,—Roberts,—Fausts; chanting hymns through traceried windows for back-ground effect, and artistically modulating the "Dio" through variation on variation of mimicked prayer (while we distribute tracts, next day, for the benefit of uncultivated swearers, upon what we suppose to be the signification of the Third Commandment);—this gas-lighted, and gas-inspired, Christianity, we are triumphant in, and draw back the hem of our robes from the touch of the heretics who dispute it. But to do a piece of common Christian ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... adopt a current saying, though unaware of its source and therefore somewhat uncertain as to the proper mode of applying it, is curiously exemplified by the outstanding query on the origin and primary signification of the phrase ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.01 • Various
... compelled to express one, we should say that this last supposition (which is no novelty) possessed decidedly more likelihood than any other. Its plausibility will be confirmed by attending to the apparent signification of the name Robin Hood. The natural refuge and stronghold of the outlaw was the woods. Hence he is termed by Latin writers silvatious, by the Normans forestier. The Anglo-Saxon robber or highwayman is called a woodrover wealdgenga, and the Norse ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... the throng, who understood the signification of what the Italian said, laughed aloud, and apparently with great glee, for, to the grossly vulgar, extreme audacity has an irresistible charm. The officer felt that the merriment was against him, though he scarce knew why; and ignorant of the language in which the other had given his ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... literature is sometimes extended in meaning (and it may be so extended), to include all that has been committed to letters, on all subjects. There is no objection to such extension in ordinary speech, no more than there is to that of the signification of the word, "beauty" to what is purely abstract. We speak, for example, of the beauty of a mathematical demonstration; but beauty, in its strictest sense, is that which appeals to the spiritual nature, and must, ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... soldiers, moving hurriedly down the river bank toward the Castle. A band richly caparisoned, carrying two flags, one green, the other red, moved at their head. The former, you may know, has a religious signification, and is seldom seen in the field except a person of high rank be present. It is my opinion, therefore, that our arrest has some reference to the arrival of such a personage. In confirmation you may yet hear the ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... country that Popery is idolatrous; our Queen, at her coronation, solemnly made a similar declaration,—yet, all have concurred in passing a Bill to endow a college for training priests to defend, and practise, and perpetuate, this corrupt and damnable worship in this realm. The ink wherewith the signification of royal assent was given to that iniquitous measure was hardly dry when the fatal rot commenced its work of destruction; and as the stroke was unheeded, and there was no repentant effort to retrace the ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... then that Dr. O'Rell had made a special study of dreams, of their causes and of their signification. I had always supposed that astrology was his particular hobby, in which science I will concede him to be deeply learned, even though he has never yet proved to my entire satisfaction that the reason why my copy of Justinian has faded from a royal purple to a pale ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... say that he was the son of Oebalus. Some explain 'Amyclide,' as meaning 'born at Amyclae;' and, indeed, Claudian says that he was born there. Others, again, would have Oebalide to signify 'born at Oebalia.' But, if he was the son of Amycla, this could not be the signification, as Oebalia was founded by Oebalus, who was the grandson of Amycla. The poet, most probably, meant to style him the descendant of Amycla, as being his great grandson, and the son of Oebalus. Again, in the 217th line of this Book, the Poet says that he was born at Sparta; but, in the ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... the snares of ambition. Innocence of life and 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 ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... is simple, precise and unambiguous. We may reasonably give to the phrase "In the beginning" the same meaning as attaches thereto in the first line of Genesis; and such signification must indicate a time antecedent to the earliest stages of human existence upon the earth. That the Word is Jesus Christ, who was with the Father in that beginning and who was Himself invested with the powers ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... sometimes mean the Roman empire, (Luke ii. 1;) but perhaps it would be rash to affirm, that it is to be always thus limited. Like "the kingdom of heaven,—the kingdom of God,"—phrases which have unquestionably a two-fold signification, so it will be safer to consider this expression as of a similar kind. All other churches would be exposed to trial, from which this one would be exempted. The trial might consist of persecution, or the spreading of heretical principles and wicked practices, followed by apostacies. ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... there be but a few of many; another, that there elenches are not annexed; and the third, that he conceived but a part of the use of them: for their use is not only in probation, but much more in impression. For many forms are equal in signification which are differing in impression, as the difference is great in the piercing of that which is sharp and that which is flat, though the strength of the percussion be the same. For there is no man but will be a little more raised by hearing it said, "Your enemies will ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... from as far back as the thirteenth century. Attempts have been made to attach a more particular interpretation to it, to make it represent the rapid rise of Gundulf, for instance; but it seems correct to give it a general signification, to look on it as typical of the uncertainty ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer
... which his friend alludes to,—though 'the natural gaiety of disposition,' of which we have so much experience in other places, and which the gravity of these pursuits happily does not cloud, suggests a glance in passing at another signification, which we find alluded to also in another place in Mrs. Quickly's 'Latin.' Mere frivolities as these conceits and private and retired arts seem now, the Author of the Advancement of Learning tells us, that to those who have spent their labours and studies in them, they seem great matters, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... upstairs, wounded Lucy's instinctive sense of what was befitting. She waited, punctilious in her feeling of duty, though the Contessa had not hesitated to make her understand that the precaution was quite unnecessary—and though even Sir Tom had said something of a similar signification. "She is old enough to take care of herself. She doesn't want a chaperon," Sir Tom had said; but nevertheless Lucy would take up a book and sit down at the table and wait: which was the more troublesome ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... soothsayers that they should interpret this thing unto them, wherefore it was that the people bought no more water of them, although the tank was full. And certain of the soothsayers answered and said, "It is by reason of overproduction," and some said, "It is glut"; but the signification of the two words is the same. And others said, "Nay, but this thing is by reason of the spots on the sun." And yet others answered, saying, "It is neither by reason of glut, nor yet of spots on the sun that this evil hath come to pass, but because ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... type of formula, not that it is an 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 that the form of energy called light is undulatory, we by no means intend ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... to be informed that the phrase 'peerten up' means substantially 'to spur up', and is an active form of the adjective 'peert' (probably a corruption of 'pert'), which is so common in the South, and which has much the signification of 'smart' in New England, as e.g., a 'peert' horse, in antithesis to a 'sorry' — ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... There was nothing arbitrary in our doing this, whereas there is much that is arbitrary in adopting a definite system of nomenclature, and applying it to organisms but imperfectly known, the differences or resemblances between which are only recognizable through certain characteristics, the true signification of which is obscure. Take, for example, the extensive array of widely different systems which have been invented during the last few years for the species of the genera bacterium and vibrio in the works of Cohn, H. Hoffmann, Hallier, ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... The signification of these chords is by no means arbitrary; but, on the contrary, their application is according to fixed rules and according to aesthetic principles; so that the highest poetry of these people becomes, in the very process of utterance, the finest music; while the utterance of base sentiments, or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... the eternal routine of mechanical employment, which always has to begin over again. Etymology brings also a suggestion. Both names are reduplicated; in Tantalus is the root of the word which means to suffer; in Sisyphus, lurks the signification of craft; it hints the wise or crafty planner (sophos) who always pushes the act to a point where it undoes itself or must be done over again. Note the effect of this reduplication of the first syllables, which means repetition; over and over again, in an infinite ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... the word genius or artistic genius, as distinct from the non-genius of the ordinary man, possesses more than a quantitative signification. Great artists are said to reveal us to ourselves. But how could this be possible, unless there be identity of nature between their imagination and ours, and unless the difference be only one of quantity? It were well to change poeta nascitur into homo ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... corruptions of the ignorant; but more especially from the perversions of writers who have been deemed authorities. This distortion of the original sense, is, in a certain degree, incidental to all living languages, which being in childhood acquired by the ear, the learner is compelled to adopt the signification of words, and employ the current phraseology of those with whom he associates. When he is subsequently taught to speak and write by rule, or grammatically, generally at an age anterior to the exercise of reason, he is coerced to imbibe that which is forced in ...
— On the Nature of Thought - or, The act of thinking and its connexion with a perspicuous sentence • John Haslam
... Babylonian a taste for 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 ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... Servius observes, that the same word, in the Thessalian language, signifies dove and prophetess, which had given room for the fabulous tradition of doves that spoke. It was easy to make those brazen basins sound by some secret means, and to give what signification they pleased to a confused ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... from the mouth of the river Lena, and perhaps just on that account, like many other headlands dangerous to the navigator on the north coast of Russia, was called Svjatoinos (the holy cape), a name which for the oldest Russian Polar Sea navigators appears to have had the same signification as "the cape that can be passed with difficulty." No one however now thinks with any apprehension of the two "holy capes," which in former times limited the voyages of the Russians and Fins living on the White Sea to the east and west, and this, I am quite convinced, ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... 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
... 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 ...
— Day Symbols of the Maya Year • Cyrus Thomas
... receive a meaning, and you see that these older conditions are the necessary predecessors of the present. Viewed in this light the facts of palaeontology receive a meaning—upon any other hypothesis, I am unable to see, in the slightest degree, what knowledge or signification we are to draw out of them. Again, note as bearing upon the same point, the singular likeness which obtains between the successive Faunae and Florae, whose remains are preserved on the rocks: you never find any great and enormous difference ...
— A Critical Examination Of The Position Of Mr. Darwin's Work, "On The Origin Of Species," In Relation To The Complete Theory Of The Causes Of The Phenomena Of Organic Nature • Thomas H. Huxley
... much of their traditionary character, being, in fact, less liable to change than written language, because of the ridicule with which the Indian visits any attempt at innovation on the point. One peculiarity of the American tongues is their singular power of extending the primitive signification of words by the addition of new syllables to the original term. Taking the verb for his starting point, the Indian is enabled, by prefixing, inserting, and adding syllables, to form at last some word which will not only express the action in question, but include at ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... supplies 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
... unfortunate princess for whose nuptials the first opera had been written. French opera grew out of the ballet. This term, which at present is restricted to entertainments in which dancing is the principal feature, and the story is entirely told in pantomime, had formerly a more extended signification. It was equivalent to the English term "Mask," a play in which dancing, songs and even dialogue found place. This light and sprightly form of drama has been favored in France from a remote period. As early as the first quarter of the seventeenth century Antoine Boesset (1585-1643) ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... Brucklyn, Broucklyn, Brookland, Brookline, and several other ways. At the end of the last century it settled down into the present Brooklyn. In this form it still retains sufficiently its original signification of the marsh or brook land."—Stiles' History of Brooklyn, ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... infinite variety of personal experience; "so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them without signification." One man has been deep in drunkenness and debauchery, he has grown reckless and hopeless; but through some friendly voice there reaches him an impulse to a new and successful effort; there comes in upon him the sense of a divine love; a mighty forgiving ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... precedence, and at length altogether oust the latter: hence it comes to pass, that we find dare is one while said to imply peeping and prying, another while trembling or crouching; moods and actions merely consequent or attendant upon the elementary signification of the word: ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 • Various
... Latine, or by our owne. But when I consider to what sort of Readers I write, & how illfaring the Greeke terme would sound in the English eare, then also how short the Latines come to expresse manie of the Greeke originals. Finally, how well our language serueth to supplie the full signification of them both, I haue thought it no lesse lawfull, yea peraduenture under licence of the learned, more laudable to vse our owne naturall, if they be well chosen, and of proper signification, than to borrow theirs. So shall not our English Poets, though they be to seeke of the Greeke and Latin languages, ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... this was echoed from the deck, it seemed to strike the ship motionless. As our breath returned to us, slowly and labouringly did she rise, heavy and waterlogged; how unlike the buoyant creature she had been a few moments before. Alas! that fatal cry was not without its signification; a sea had struck her, and in sweeping off seven men, had filled the ship with water, and carried away rudder, deck-house, and everything. Then, indeed, fear took possession of our minds. Amidst the roaring of the wind, the earnest and solemn prayers of Madame might ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... 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 passages? ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 43, Saturday, August 24, 1850 • Various
... in the ninth century. I happen to remember also, a propos of this resin and the censer in which it is burnt, a verse I read long since in the 'Monastic Distinctions' of the anonymous English writer of the thirteenth century, which sums up their signification more ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... began with the expression Universitas vestra, all of you (in the old-time English, as preserved in the Irish expression, "the whole of ye"), referring to all the members of the faculty. The transfer to our term and signification ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... spy. It happened that Fergus' sword lay close by him. Cuillius drew it from its sheath and left the sheath empty. Then Cuillius betook himself to Ailill. "Well?" said Ailill. "Well, then," replied [3]Cuillius;[3] "thou knowest the signification of this token. As thou hast thought," continued Cuillius, "it is thus I discovered them, lying together." "It is so, then." Each of them laughs, at the other. "It is well so," said Ailill; "she had no choice; to win his help on the Tain she hath done it. Keep the ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... yeere of Brightrikes reigne, there fell vpon mens garments, as they walked abroad, crosses of bloudie colour, and bloud fell from heauen as drops of raine. Some tooke this woonder for [Sidenote: Matt. West. Wil. Malm. Hen. Hunt. Danes.] a signification of the persecution that followed by the Danes: for shortlie after, in the yeere insuing, there arriued three Danish ships vpon the English coasts, against whome the lieutenant of the parties adjoining made foorth, to apprehend ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (6 of 8) - The Sixt Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... above verse, which children presented to their parents on these occasions, were called Simnells. In some parts of England—in Lancashire, Shropshire, and Herefordshire—these cakes are still eaten on Mid-Lent Sunday. Possibly they had some religious signification, for the Saxons were in habit of eating consecrated cakes at their festivals. The name Simnell is derived from a Latin word signifying fine flour, and not from the mythical persons, Simon and Nell, who are popularly supposed to have invented the cake. Hot cross buns are a relic of ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... to himself, who, knowing that the word meant a "turnpike," never supposed it had any other signification. ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... shown elsewhere that Gaff could neither read nor write. Yet it does not follow that he had no knowledge whatever of these subjects. On the contrary, he understood the signification of capital letters when printed large and distinct, and could, (with inconceivable pains and difficulty no doubt), string a few simple words together when occasion required. He ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... creeping 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 ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... plainly present. In the 16th and 17th centuries it was very common to call the pieces of music in any volume for an instrument by the name 'Lessons.' The first meaning, of course, was that they were examples for the pupil in music, but the word was used quite freely with the purely general signification of ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... derrick is an ancient British word: perhaps he will be kind enough to let us know its signification. I always understood that a derrick took its name from Derrick, the notorious executioner at Tyburn, in the early part of the seventeenth century, whose name was long a general term for hangman. In merchant ships, the derrick, for hoisting up goods, is always placed at ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 186, May 21, 1853 • Various
... for the sake of euphony and in order to give a female 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, signify nothing more than the waxing and waning of the ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley |
