"Signification" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... here be mentioned that the epithet [Greek: paredros] had a secondary and inferior signification. It was applied by later authors to the demons or familiar spirits who attended upon enchanters like Simon Magus or Apollonius; and such satellites were believed to be supplied by the souls of innocent young persons violently slain. Whether this secondary meaning of the title indicates ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... trapper. They had not been the only victims of that unerring and deadly weapon. On the same piece of wood-work I could see long rows of similar souvenirs, apart from each other, only differing a little in shape. I knew something of the signification of these horrible hieroglyphics; I knew they were the history of a life fearfully spent—a ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... Both brass and iron are east here, but to-day it is iron. The sandy floor is covered with moulds of all descriptions, and swarthy workmen are preparing them to receive the melted iron. Occasionally you are startled by the shout of "Mind your eye!" which must be taken in its literal signification, for it comes from a moulder blowing away with a bellows the superfluous grains of fine sand, which, if once in the eye, will give some trouble. The moulds are ready, the furnace is opened, and a stream of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... had, however, among the Athenians, a far more comprehensive signification than with us. It included not only the harmonies of time and of tune, but the poetic diction, sentiment and creation, each in its widest sense. The study of music was with them, in fact, the general cultivation of the taste—of that which ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... 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 ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... signification of it, and in fact the most characteristic of the Ethics. The word Principle means "starting-point." Every action has two beginnings, that of Resolve ([Greek: ou eneka]), and that of Action ([Greek: othen ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... which he was received at Dresden to make that city his residence, until his death in 1764. Is the name of Amorevoli, borne by one of the first singers of that day, an assumed one, or an instance of name fatality? Certain it is,that Amorevole is a technical term in music somewhat analogous in its signification with Amabile and Amoroso.] ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... either the word must have a more extended signification than is usually given to it, or Homer must here have fallen into an error; for two complete nights and one day, that on which Patroclus met his death, had intervened since the visit of Ajax and Ulysses to the tent of Achilles. See also ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... beholders, the inhabitants of the dead centuries are mere spectral shades; for it takes a poet's fancy to vitalize with warmth and breath again those things that, having apparently left no impress on their own generation, seem to have no more signification for this than the persons of the drama or the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... 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 ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... which could not fail to be taken in a double sense, were pronounced exactly as I relate them, and were emphasized in a manner to leave no doubt as to their signification. Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne remained silent as before, and for some time the silence was unbroken. At last, Pursegur interrupted it, by asking how the retreat was to be executed. Each, then, spoke confusedly. Vendome, in his turn, kept silence from ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... 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 to his peace, and this was ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... which he belonged, he could come among them untarnished, the conquering prince. But that miserable guinea! He racked his brains. There was his gold watch and chain, a symbol, to his young mind, of high estate. When he had bought it there crossed his mind the silly thought of its signification of the infinite leagues that lay between him and Billy Goodge. He could pawn it for ten pounds—it would be like pawning his heart's blood—but where? Not in Morebury, even supposing there was a pawnbroker's in the place. He had many friends in his profession, scattered ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... is often derived from anta, an old Peruvian word signifying metal. But Humboldt says: "There are no means of interpreting it by connecting it with any signification or idea; if such connection exist, it is buried in the obscurity of the past." According to Col. Tod, the northern Hindoos apply the name Andes to ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... the exact signification of the last phrase, I ordered him to go on, and, after a lengthy peregrination through muddy byways, at the sides of which I could see nothing but old fences, we drove up to a small cabin, right on the shore of ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... which Handel set for strings in "The Messiah;" he called it simply pifa, but his publishers called it a "Pastoral symphony," and as such we still know it. It was about the middle of the eighteenth century that the present signification became crystallized in the word, and since the symphonies of Haydn, in which the form first reached perfection, are still to be heard in our concert-rooms, it may be said that all the masterpieces of symphonic literature ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... wave. He also speaks of the envelope of a set of elementary waves, formed by coalescence of those elementary wave-fronts, as "the termination" of the wave; and the elementary wave-fronts he terms "particular" waves. Owing to the circumstance that the French word rayon possesses the double signification of ray of light and radius of a circle, he avoids its use in the latter sense and speaks always of the semi-diameter, not of the radius. His speculations as to the ether, his suggestive views of the structure of crystalline bodies, and his explanation of opacity, ...
— Treatise on Light • Christiaan Huygens
... Bridget curtsied with great 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, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... immediately preceding Dante, amid which the romance languages define themselves at last, that this temper is manifested. Here, in the literature of Provence, the very name of romanticism is stamped with its true signification: here we have indeed a romantic world, grotesque [251] even, in the strength of its passions, almost insane in its curious expression of them, drawing all things into its sphere, making the birds, nay! lifeless things, its voices and messengers, yet so penetrated ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... already in the Yajur Veda has taken to itself the later philosophical signification, is merely prayer, the meaning which in the Rig Veda ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... not know until 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 blue is, first, because ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... name by which their ancestress was best known, they never swerved from it; holding to it undaunted by its length and harshness, and unmoved by the discovery of historians that Pocahontas is no name at all, but simply a pet sobriquet applicable to all Indian girls alike, and whose signification is scarcely one of dignity. Historians might discover, disagree, wrangle and explain, but Pocahontas followed Pocahontas in the Mason family with the undeviating ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... 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. ...
— Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic • Andrew Stephenson
... must be chiefly directed. The lesson, however, is drawn, not from the inherent, essential properties of the soil, but from the accidental obstructions to the growth of grain which it may in certain circumstances contain: some notice, therefore, of the seed and the sower in their spiritual signification is not only profitable at this stage, but peremptorily necessary to the full apprehension of the instruction ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... pupils, even when confirmed by an oath, because 'then we do not deceive our neighbour, but allow him to deceive himself?' ... It is admissible, therefore, to use words and sentences which have a double signification, and leave the hapless hearer to take which of them he may choose. What proof have I, then, that by 'mean it? I never said it!' Dr. Newman does not signify, I did not say it, but I did mean ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... "evolution," now generally applied to the cosmic process, has had a singular history, and is used in various senses.* Taken in its popular signification it means progressive development, that is, gradual change from a condition of relative uniformity to one of relative complexity; but its connotation has been widened to include the phenomena of retrogressive metamorphosis, that is, of progress from a condition ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... eastwards 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
... kindness which a man demands from no one but her he loves, and which no one can give him unless she loves him? Could it be that he had done this and then thought that it all meant nothing? that the interchange of such feelings had no further signification? ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... 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 ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... signification of education, according to one derivation of the word, is the bringing or leading out of the faculties. The best educated person is not he who has stored up in his memory the greatest number of facts, but he whose faculties have become most strengthened and ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... "Placitum," also quoted by Ducange, of Childebert, King of France (circa 695), the word capella seems to mean a sacred building—"in oratorio suo seu capella Sancti Marthini." And in a charter of Charles the Simple, circ. 900, the term unquestionably occurs in this latter signification, disconnected from St. Martin. Other illustrations may be seen in Ducange, who has bestowed especial industry on the ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 26. Saturday, April 27, 1850 • Various
... never to marry. It might mean that she disapproved of such words at such a time. I cannot repeat the tenth of the meanings which I thought I might attach to this word. But the worst thing that it could purport, the most terrible signification of all, recurred to me over and over again. It might mean that Bertha could not return my affection. She knew that I loved her, but she could not ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... the Old Testament signs and shadows went off the stage in the church of Christ among the Jews. They lost their virtue and signification when Christ nailed them to his cross (Col 2). But as to their name, and the grandeur that attended that, it continued with many that were weak, and vanished not, but when the abomination that made ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... 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 of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... 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 ...
— A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) • Thomas Purney
... described by the orthodox as a God possessing the attributes of personality. The Deity becomes identified with nature, co-extensive with the universe, but the God of the orthodox no longer exists; we may change the signification of God, and use the word to express a different idea, but we can no longer mean by it a Personal Being in the orthodox sense, possessing an individuality which divides Him from the rest of ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... remark, in anything approaching to a contemptuous spirit. He evidently meant it as a title of endearment. We had tacitly accepted it, and so had the lad, who for some time past had answered to the name of Puggy, in utter ignorance, of course, as to its signification. ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... reprehensible in the opinion of men can lead to a good end, and do not try to reconcile the justice of men with the justice of God, which alone is just, not in our sense but with finality. And now, my boy, you'll greatly oblige me by looking into Vossius for the signification of five or six rather obscure words which the Panopolitan employs, and wherewith one has to do battle in the darkness of that insidious manner which astonished even the willing heart of Ajax, as reported by Homer, prince of poets and historians. ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... step conducted him out of the kingdom. The disarmed king had remained the hostage of the ancient regime in the hands of the nation. The declaration of the rights of man and citizen, the sole metaphysical act of the Revolution to this time, had given it a social and universal signification. This declaration had been much jeered; it certainly contained some errors, and confused in terms the state of nature and the state of society; but it was, notwithstanding, the very essence of ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... seek the primitive signification of all objects in Nature, unroll their symbolism, and thereby attain the first historical groundwork of poetry, must bear in mind that this system was formed, and, indeed, ripely developed, in an age anterior to all written records of humanity. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... rendered everlasting, eternal, and forever, which are, in a few instances, applied to the misery of the wicked, do not prove that misery to be endless, because these terms are loose in their signification, and are frequently used in a limited sense; that the original terms, being often used in the plural number, clearly demonstrate that the period, though indefinite, is limited in its very nature. They maintain that the meaning of the term ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... 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
... 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 sordid must ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various
... the battalions come next, marching slowly, their arms reversed. A small bunch of red immortelles is on every breast. Has the choice of the colour a political signification, or is it a symbol ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... Roberts growing more relieved as he proceeded. He had never observed any want of conformity among his servants, he assured the priest; so far as he knew, all were loyal to the Catholic Church. By that term both gentlemen meant, not the universal body of Christian believers (the real signification of the word), but that minority which blindly obeys the Pope, and being a minority, is of course not Catholic nor universal. When Mr Roberts's apprehensions had thus been entirely lulled to rest, the wily priest ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... without proof that Bonaven and Bannaventa are one and the same; that "vicus" is used in its secondary meaning of "a village," and not in its primary signification, "a district or quarter of a town," in the "Confession"; and while admitting that there was no other town in Britain named Bannaventa except Bannaventa in Northampton, as far as can be gathered from "Roman sources of information," and passing ...
— Bolougne-Sur-Mer - St. Patrick's Native Town • Reverend William Canon Fleming
... an avowed Copernican and the destined master and friend of Kepler. Yet, in the treatise embodying his observations, he felt it necessary to save his reputation for orthodoxy by calling the comet a "new and horrible prodigy," and by giving a chapter of "conjectures on the signification of the present comet," in which he proves from history that this variety of comet betokens peace, but peace purchased by a bloody victory. That he really believed in this theological theory seems impossible; the very fact that ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... 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 reared under similar conditions. The method proposed is to unite animals possessing ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale
... people talk of the Infinite in Time and Space, they can point to one intelligible signification; as to the rest, this word is not a subject for scientific propositions, and the attempt at such can lead only to contradictions. The Infinite is a phrase most various in its purport: it is for the most part an emotional ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... entirely apart from sensation, in a transcendental signification, forms the pure intuition of the mind, existing in it as a mere form of sensibility. Transcendental aesthetic is the science of all the principles of sensibility. But transcendental logic is the science of the principles ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... affliction for me to remember that I had been called by such hard names. "Putty-headed!" said he. I infer, dear Aunty, that he must have worked in the painter's department, and had been familiar with putty; hence he drew the epithet, into whose signification I did not care to inquire. "White-birch-looking!" I suppose he referred to the impression of imbecility which we have in seeing a perfectly white tree in the woods among the deep green of the sturdier trees. He may have referred to the effect of sedentary habits on my complexion. However, I soon ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... modern times. Colonel Forbes Leslie thinks that a cock had been sacrificed on one of the three stones which lie in front of the double row, but there seems to be no certain evidence for this. It is, however, very probable that these alignements had some religious signification, and the same is no doubt true of certain small circles of small stones, also found in ...
— Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders • T. Eric Peet
... apprehensively to see if I am noticed, I meet the blear eyes of Sir Roger fixed upon mine. He has turned his face quite toward me, and a ray from the candles falls full upon it. Blear! Well, if his eyes are blear, then henceforth blear must bear a different signification from the unhandsome one it has hitherto worn. Henceforth it must mean blue as steel: it must mean clear as a glass of spring water; keen as a well-tempered knife; kindly ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... may be wisely, the old-fashioned custom of giving a child a name merely because it happened to be found in the Scriptures, where with its special meaning it was singularly appropriate, yet, when used as a name without that special signification, it would be equally inappropriate. But are we wholly free from the same fault in another direction? How many children have been so burdened with a name that had been made illustrious by the life ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... which Dante constantly applies to Beatrice is "most gentle," gentillisima, while other ladies are called gentile, "gentle." Here he makes the distinction between the donna and the donna gentile. The word is used with a signification similar to that which it has in our own early literature, and fuller than that which it now retains. It refers both to race, as in the phrase "of gentle birth," and to the qualities of character. "Gentleness means the same as nobleness," says Dante, in the Convito; "and by nobleness ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... understood by the inhabitants of our earth, is to be seen in the relics which remain in a more or less perverted form in the hieroglyphics of Egypt, the idolatry among many nations, and sun-worship, where the spiritual signification has often been lost and men have come to worship the natural objects instead of the spiritual, which they represent. The mythological writings of many nations, and even Masonry, contain remains of this once well known science. The first ...
— Personal Experience of a Physician • John Ellis
... The legal signification of a charity is derived chiefly from the statute 43 Eliz. ch. 4. "Those purposes," says Sir William Grant, "are considered charitable which that statute enumerates."[12] Colleges are enumerated as charities in that statute. The government, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... our Consul-General in Roumania, Mr. Percy Sanderson, has reviewed the trade between the two nations, and he gives some rather significant hints to 'fair traders,' that is to say not in the refined sense in which the term has been recently employed, but in its good old-fashioned signification of honest dealers. 'It cannot be said,' he remarks, 'that the bulk of the goods imported from Great Britain forms by any means a fair sample of its produce and manufactures,' and 'there is already a tendency amongst the well-to-do classes to purchase French or Austrian ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... 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 ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac
... mathematical usage, as applied to process and to quantity, has a two-fold signification. An infinite process is one which we can continue as long as we please, but which exists solely in our continuance of it.[221] An infinite quantity is one which exceeds our powers of mensuration or of conception, but which, nevertheless, has ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... senor," answered 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, ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... the monuments of whose existence he disregards, but which, in the earth-mounds rising up over all the land, arrest the white man's attention and wonder. He inquires of the Indian inhabitant he is expelling from the country, Who was the architect of these, and what their signification? and is answered: We have no tradition which tells; our people found them when they came, as you find them to-day. These traditions give the history of the nations now here, and we find in every Southern tribe that they tell of ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... by habit and memory until some disturbing cause compels invention—then the longevity of each generation or stage of this organism should depend upon the lateness of the average age of reproduction in each generation; so that an organism (using the word in its usual signification) which did not upon the average begin to reproduce itself till it was twenty, should be longer lived than one that on the average begins to reproduce itself at a year old. I also maintained that the phenomena of old age should be referred to failure of memory ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... possible—the heading of this section of the Palatine Anthology distinguishes the {sumpotika}, the epigrams of youth and pleasure, from the {skoptika}, the witty or humorous verses which have accidentally in modern English come almost to absorb the full signification of the word epigram. The latter come principally under two heads: one, where the point of the epigram depends on an unexpected verbal turn, the other, where the humour lies in some gross exaggeration of statement. Or these may be combined; ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... less, and the word Petul-engro is applied to the tinker also, though the proper meaning of it is undoubtedly what I have already stated above. In other dialects of the Gypsy tongue, this cognomen exists, though not exactly with the same signification; for example, in the Hungarian dialect, PINDORO, which is evidently a modification of Petul-engro, is applied to a Gypsy in general, whilst in Spanish Pepindorio is the Gypsy word for Antonio. In some parts of Northern ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... servants came from this class. Some were persons of culture, and, on rare occasions, of means. The word "servant" did not at that time have the menial signification that it has acquired in modern times, for it was applied to all that entered upon a legal agreement to remain in the employment of another for a prescribed time.[167] There are many instances of persons of gentle blood becoming indentured servants to lawyers or physicians, in order ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... Egyptian Deities was named Neith, and Neit; and analogous to the above her priests were styled [174]Pataneit. They were also named Sonchin, which signifies a priest of the Sun: for Son, San, Zan, are of the same signification; and Son-Chin is [Greek: Zanos hiereus]. Proclus says, that it was the title of the priests; and particularly of him, who presided in the ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... a small shelf properly 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 gifted that whenever ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... signification of the myth is no less beautiful, for Balder and Hodur are symbols of the conflicting forces of good and evil, ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... 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 of that great ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... querpo is a corruption from the Spanish word cuerpo. "En cuerpo, a man without a cloak." Pineda's Dictionary, 1740. The present signification evidently is, that a gentleman without his serving-man, or attendant, is but half dressed:—he possesses only in part the appearance of a man of fashion. "To walk in cuerpo, is to go without a cloak." Glossographia ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... the signification of the seven planets which are enclosed in a triangle, that forms the rays of the exterior circles, and are enclosed in the grand triangle. A. The seven planets, according to philosophy, represent ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... seamen, and probably become affected by the variable element that surrounds them. They inquire very often after each other's health, so that one would suppose them to be all doctors; but the question: how do you do? is merely a form of speech; a sound without the slightest signification. ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... Notitia. Rome only reckoned 1780 large houses, domus; but the word must have had a more dignified signification. No insulae are mentioned at Constantinople. The old capital consisted of 42 streets, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... barbarisms, licentious idioms, and irregular combinations. Something, perhaps, I have added to the elegance of its construction, and something to the harmony of its cadence. When common words were less pleasing to the ear, or less distinct in their signification, I have familiarized the terms of philosophy, by applying them to popular ideas, but have rarely admitted any words not authorized by former writers; for I believe that whoever knows the English tongue in its present extent, will be able to express his thoughts without ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... not, and I say it deliberately, degrade woman by giving her the right of suffrage. I mean the word in its full signification, because I believe that woman as she is to-day, the queen of home and of hearts, is above the political collisions of this world, and should always ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... the flag-ship. We do not understand the signification of the flag, but while we look at it the ten mortars open fire, one after another, in rapid succession. The gunboats follow. There are ten shells, thirteen inches in diameter, rising high in air. There are handfuls of smoke flecking the sky, and a prolonged, indescribable crashing, rolling, ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... "Genius" signified the tutelary God who was supposed to attend every person from the period of his birth. The signification of the word will be found further referred to in the Notes to ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... a proper distinction between principles. Resisting the popular will, on the part of an individual, they considered arrogance and aristocracy, per se, without at all entering into the question of the right, or the wrong. The people, rightly enough in the general signification of the term, they deemed to be sovereign; and they belonged to a numerous class, who view disobedience to the sovereign in a democracy, although it be in his illegal caprices, very much as the subject of a despot ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... that Government." Had this been done, it is stated that "Her Majesty's Government would have had little difficulty in agreeing to the modification proposed by the Senate, which then would have had in effect the same signification as the original wording." Whether this would have been the effect, whether the mere circumstance of the exchange of the ratifications of the British convention with Honduras prior in point of time to the ratification ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... 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 ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... of man, and the local division of labour. The other, the dispersion of man, and the territorial division of labour. They differ thus in every thing, except that they both use the word free trade—but with reference to totally distinct ideas. With the one, COMMERCE has that enlarged signification which embraces every description of intercourse resulting from the exercise of "man's natural inclination" for association, while with the other TRADE has reference to no idea, beyond that of the mere pedler who buys in the cheapest market and sells in the dearest ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... why the odoriferous principle of plants should not be denominated oils. In the first place, it is a bad principle to give any class of substances the same signification as those belonging to another. Surely, there are enough distinguishing qualities in their composition, their physical character, and chemical reaction, to warrant the application of a significant name to that large class of substances known as ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse
... sword. I ask you, when Marius lately, after he had stabbed Hellas, 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
... 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 German origin; and some of the longer pieces so closely resemble, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... fell from heaven, near the army under my command in Upper Alsace, and I caused it, as a fatal warning from God to men, to be hung up in the neighboring church of Encisheim. In vain I myself explained to all Christian kings the signification of this mysterious stone. The Almighty punished the neglect of this warning with a dreadful scourge, from which thousands have suffered death, or pains worse than death. But since this punishment of the abominable sins ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... 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 ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... was all their off'ring And eke 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 ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... 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, and Billroth. The confusion ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... done in the Kalendars and Rubrics: Or 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 ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... language; and equal in elegancy to Yes, my Lady, and No, my Lady. The word VAST and VASTLY, you will have found by my former letter that I had proscribed out of the diction of a gentleman, unless in their proper signification of sizes and BULK. Not only in language, but in everything else, take great care that the first impressions you give of yourself may be not only favorable, but pleasing, engaging, nay, seducing. They are often decisive; I confess they are a good deal ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... spirits; for it induced the thought that something might be wrong. Once give such a thought birth, and let mystery and doubt continue to harass the mind, and peace is gone for ever. A thousand vague suspicions will enter, and words, looks, and actions will have a signification ...
— Married Life; Its Shadows and Sunshine • T. S. Arthur
... is told of a princess with an impossible name in Zululand is told of the mother of Charlemagne in France. The tale of the swallowing may have been attributed to Cronus, as a great truculent deity, though it has no particular elemental signification ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... eccentricity of carriage or demeanour, not a moment of egotistical display, to remind his hearers that, although Beethoven is being played, it is Joachim who is playing, ever escapes this truly admirable and (if words might be allowed to bear their legitimate signification) ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... forlorne hope occur constantly in the same work, and bear the same signification ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 215, December 10, 1853 • 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... to be one of the oldest tongues spoken by man, since it contains words and expressions of all, or nearly all, the known polished languages on earth. The name Maya, with the same signification everywhere it is met, is to be found scattered over the different countries of what we term the Old ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... which any word belongs, is ascertained, not by the original signification of that word, but by its present manner of meaning, or, rather, the office which it performs ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... inhabitants of the earth, or so far surpassing all others, as to be alone worthy of this title. On the southern side of the peninsula, the aborigines are believed to have been distinguished by the name of Itelmen; but the signification of this ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... investigation both of the orthography and signification of words, their ETYMOLOGY was necessarily to be considered, and they were therefore to be divided into primitives and derivatives. A primitive word, is that which can be traced no further to any English root; thus circumspect, circumvent, circumstance, delude, concave and ...
— Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language • Samuel Johnson
... go on the stage itself—it has an historical signification. Here, by the third side-scene from the stage-lights, to the right, as we look down towards the audience, Gustavus the Third was assassinated at a masquerade; and he was borne into that little chamber there, close by the scene, whilst all the outlets were closed, and the motley ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen |
