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Plural   Listen
noun
Plural  n.  (Gram.) The plural number; that form of a word which expresses or denotes more than one; a word in the plural form.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Plural" Quotes from Famous Books



... declined the noun very well," said I; "that is in the singular number; we will now go to the plural." ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow

... expressed abstractly, whether prophecy, (not, whether we are prophets;) whether ministry, (not, whether we are deacons, ministers:) and both prophecy and ministry are put in the accusative case; and both of them have relation, and are joined unto the participle of the plural number having, intimating that divers do share in prophecy, pastor and teacher; divers in ministry, deacon and ruling elder. But all the other are expressed concretely, and in the nominative case, and in the singular number, and to every of them the single article is prefixed, ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London

... this word 'Vauclaire' is nothing else than a corruption of the Latin Vallis Clara, or Bright Valley, for l's and u's did interchange about in this way, I remember: cheval becoming chevau(x) in the plural, like 'fool' and 'fou,' and the rest: which proves the dear laziness of French people, for the 'l' was too much trouble for them to sing, and when they came to two 'l's' they quite succumbed, shying ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel

... churchmen; and men of talent and women of superior sentiments cannot hide their contempt. Not the less does nature continue to fill the heart of youth with suggestions of this enthusiasm, and there are now men,—if indeed I can speak in the plural number,—more exactly, I will say, I have just been conversing with one man, to whom no weight of adverse experience will make it for a moment appear impossible that thousands of human beings might exercise towards each other the grandest and simplest ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... person and the second person and the third person were as one to him. The distinction of the New Testament is that it is the one book the world has seen, which dispenses with pronouns. It is a book that sums up pronouns and numbers, singular and plural, first person, second and third person, and all, in the one great central pronoun of the universe. The ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee

... it was not without a root; that in fact it was the Judaean conception of a Messiah, translated into Roman and worldly ideas; into ideas which a Roman could understand, or with which the world could sympathize, viz., that rerum potiretur. (The plural here indicates only the ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... ACTS (in O. Eng. byrgels, whence byriels, wrongly taken as a plural, and so Mid. Eng. buryel, from O. Eng. byrgan, properly to protect, cover, to bury). The main lines of the law of burial in England may be stated very shortly. Every person has the right to be buried ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... the name of the group, known as a genus, to which it belongs, the second to be the name of that sort, or species, of animal. The cat, for instance, is Felis catus, the lion Felis leo, the tiger Felis tigris, and so on. Linnaeus then arranged the genera (plural of genus) into families, and these families into orders and so classified the animal and plant world as far as he knew it. In his earlier years Linnaeus thought of each species as being utterly apart and distant from any other. He believed it had been so from the first, each species ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker

... allowable through the covert of folly? For us also makes that mystical Psalmist, though I remembered it not in its right place, "Remember not the sins of my youth nor my ignorances." You see what two things he pretends, to wit, youth, whose companion I ever am, and ignorances, and that in the plural number, a number of multitude, whereby we are to understand that there was no small ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus

... Attorney-General seemed not to admit their right to speak in regard to appointments, and that appointments were made of which they had no knowledge, and of which neither they nor their constituents could approve. These differences reached a crisis when Senators (I use the word in the plural) notified the President that they should not visit the Department of Justice while Judge Hoar was Attorney-General. Thus was a disagreeable alternative presented to the President, and a first impression would lead to the conclusion that he ought to have sustained the Attorney- ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell

... Consequently anything new in constructional material interests me, and in this connection I would like to ask you what is or what are Prone? I have only seen it (or them) mentioned once, and from the context I gather that the word "prone" stands for the plural of "prone" (as "grouse" is the plural of "grouse," and as "house" might well stand for the plural of "house" nowadays, considering the shortage of dwellings), and that it (or they) is (or are) used either as a floor covering or otherwise in connection with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various

... two children had in addressing one another changed the homely singular pronoun to the more polite, if less grammatical, second person plural. The boy laughed, nodded his head, and said, 'You are ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge

... When the opera was brought out in the vernacular, Mr. Frederick E. Weatherly, who made the English adaptation, called the play and the character assumed by Canio in the comedy "Punchinello." This evoked an interesting comment from Mr. Hale: "'Pagliacci' is the plural of Pagliaccio, which does not mean and never did mean Punchinello. What is a Pagliaccio? A type long known to the Italians, and familiar to the French as Paillasse. The Pagliaccio visited Paris first in 1570. ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... to throw off the mask, and parade myself to a mocking world as the imbecile violator of an established system? Should I not, in a moment so untoward, more than ever desire to merge my insignificant unit in the mysterious importance which the smallest Singular obtains when he makes himself a Plural, and speaks not as 'I,' but as 'We'? We are insensible to the charm of young ladies; We are not bribed by suppers; We, like the witches of 'Macbeth,' have no name on earth; We are the greatest wisdom of the greatest number; We are ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... had seen no human being except this woman; but as she spoke in the plural, there must ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... Christians, none appear to see how this is to be done. Even Mr. Fukuzawa says that the first step in the reform of the family and the establishment of monogamy is to develop public sentiment against prostitution and plural or illegal marriage; and the way to do this is first to make evil practices secret. This, he says, is more important than to give women a higher education. He does not see that Christianity with its conceptions of immediate responsibility of the individual to God, the ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick

... corn-merchants at Liverpool, his contribution to the total capital of four thousand pounds being fifteen hundred, of which his father lent him five hundred, and a friend another five at five per cent. In 1787 he thought the plural ending of his name sounded awkwardly in the style of the firm, Corrie, Gladstones, and Bradshaw, so he dropped the s.[12] He visited London to enlarge his knowledge of the corn trade in Mark Lane, ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... Christ was within governing their words and actions. They would have no formal prayers, no formal preaching, but sought to speak with each other as the Spirit prompted, soul to soul. They would not, when our plural pronoun "you" was still only plural, speak to one man as if he were two or more. They swore not at all; but their "Yea" and "Nay" were known to be more binding than the oaths of many of their persecutors. And as they would not go through the required form of swearing allegiance to ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood

... contains the five Roundles of the Colours, which are globular, and are usually shaded accordingly. The Torteau, No. 152, in the plural Torteaux, is gules: the Hurt is azure: the Pellet or Ogress is sable: the Pomme is vert: and the Golpe is purpure. These distinctive titles, which are more calculated to perplex the student than to simplify his study, are of comparatively recent origin, the early ...
— The Handbook to English Heraldry • Charles Boutell

... been done by the Expedition, it should always be understood that Dr. Kirk, Mr. Charles Livingstone, Mr. R. Thornton, and others composed it. In using the plural number they are meant, and I wish to bear testimony to the untiring zeal, energy, courage, and perseverance with which my companions laboured; undaunted by difficulties, dangers, or hard fare. It is my firm belief that, were their services required in any other capacity, they might be implicitly ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... the Christian sense, and explains the vice and virtue of mankind by the actions of the souls of men in a state of pre-existence. No signs or miracles are referred to in the account of 'the just man'; and that it was intended as a generalization is evident from the change of the singular into the plural ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... "news is a noun singular, and as such must have been adopted bodily into the language;" and if it were a "noun of plural form and plural meaning," I still think that the singular form must have preceded it. The two instances CH. gives, "goods" and "riches," are more in point than he appears to suppose, although in support of my argument, and not his. The first is from the Gothic, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 32, June 8, 1850 • Various

... he was to slacken his speed, he had the satisfaction of seeing, on glancing back along the gloomy passage, that the bears were also compelled to slacken their pace and climb over intervening rocks as he had done. And it was plural, for the second one had joined the first, and they were coming steadily on, their light coats showing with terrible plainness in the gloom among ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn

... Local Government Act of 1894 has placed local taxation on the most democratic basis. The latter has given the power of voting rates to many who do not pay them; and, by abolishing the nominated, or ex-officio, guardians, and the plural voting of the larger ratepayers, it has almost destroyed the influence of property on ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... proved by the fact that his actual speech at Turin, as printed by himself in his book, with an English Translation (pp. 558-561), though in substance identical with the draft-copy, differs in some particulars. In the actual speech the plural, "Your Royal Highnesses," is changed into the singular, "Your Royal Highness," for address to the Duke only, though the Duchess-mother was present; the parenthetical comparison of Morland to the Son ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... plural of bacterium).—Exceedingly minute, spherical, oblong, or cylindrical cells which are concerned in putrefactive processes. Some ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons

... maintains that the idea of God must have preceded that of gods, as the plural always implies the singular, he yet claims very justly that the exclusive conception of monotheism as against polytheism could hardly have existed. Men simply thought of God as God, as a child thinks of its father, ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood

... marmalade, finnan-haddie or kippered herring for breakfast; tea,—of course we never touch coffee in the morning" (here Francesca started with surprise); "porridge, and we like them well boiled, please" (I hope she noted the plural pronoun; Salemina did, and blanched with envy); "minced collops for luncheon, or a nice little black-faced chop; Scotch broth, pease brose or cockyleekie soup at dinner, and haggis now and then, with a cold shape for dessert. ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... number: (1) a fresh apportionment of seats in the Commons in accordance with the distribution of population; (2) the extension of the franchise to classes of men at present debarred; (3) the abolition of the plural vote; and (4) the enfranchisement ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... the servant, omitting the "Miss," notwithstanding that Alley had put in her claim for it by using the plural number. ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... lieutenant, that what you tell me is a matter of the greatest importance? What may we not conclude from those words, 'This time they have not missed me'? In the first place, it proves that Champcey was fully aware that his life was in danger. Secondly, that plural, 'They have not,' shows that he knew he was watched and threatened by several people: hence the scamp whom we caught must have accomplices. In the third place, those words, 'This time,' establish the fact that his ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau

... Wakefield remarks that this use of a plural verb after the first of a series of subjects is in Pindar's manner. Warton compares Homer, Il. ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray

... be told as occasion demands, in whatever way the course of the history may chance to prepare the point temporarily under discussion. Let this same explanation be sufficient [Footnote: The MS. here has [Greek: ekontes] "being (plural) sufficient." I have adopted the reading [Greek: eketo], suggested by Melber.] to cover also the remaining matters of importance. For I shall recount to the best of my ability all the exploits of the Romans, but as to ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio

... the question, answered in a surly tone, and with a kind of disdain, So as we eat, so shall we work. This he spoke aloud, so that he might be sure the captain heard him and the rest of the men also, and it was evident that as he spoke in plural numbers, We, so he spoke their minds as well as his own, and words which ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... person who came back was the person who went out. Then, again, the man who took the rooms spoke English well. This other, however, prints 'match' when it should have been 'matches.' I can imagine that the word was taken out of a dictionary, which would give the noun but not the plural. The laconic style may be to conceal the absence of knowledge of English. Yes, Watson, there are good reasons to suspect that there has been a ...
— The Adventure of the Red Circle • Arthur Conan Doyle

... "existence" and not "existences." Why do I say "existence", and not "existences"? Why, with a fine handsome plural ready to hand, do I wind you up and turn you off, so to speak, with a piffling little singular not fit for a half-starved newspaper fellow, let alone a fine, full-fledged, intellectual and well-read vegetarian and teetotaller who writes in the reviews? Eh? ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc

... forgetting at this moment of genuine feeling the pompous plural in which he had hitherto spoken of himself. The Prince fondly kissed his child. The boy was about ten years of age, exquisitely handsome. Courage, not audacity, was imprinted on his ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... on speaking of coal in the plural when they use it only in the singular is more than I can understand. Conceded that we overheat our houses and our railroad trains and our hotel lobbies in America, nevertheless we do heat them. In winter their interiors ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... dan ... peores: it is going to be give and take; and if you men persist in doing as you like, it is right for us women to do the same; and it remains to be seen who will make the worst of it. The feminine plural pronoun las is often used in a general and indefinite sense where the English would use 'it' or have no object expressed; thus: donde las dan las toman, would be more literally: where they give they take. The same indefinite ...
— Ms vale maa que fuerza • Manuel Tamayo y Baus

... the descent of the great river by Orellana, a knight of Truxillo. The fabled women-warriors were said to have been seen in this notable voyage, and hence the name of the river Amazon, a name which in Spanish and Portuguese is in the plural. It was not until nearly one hundred years after Orellana was in his grave that a voyage of discovery ascended the river. In 1637 Pedro Teixeira started from Para with an expedition of nearly two thousand (all but seventy of whom were ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton

... talent for writing will be found conjoined with an extraordinary lack of education and training. An excellent piece of English—pithy, forcible, and even elegant—will often shatter on some simple grammatical reef, such as the use of "as" for "that" ("he did not know as he could"), or of the plural for the singular ("a long ways off"). Mr. James Lane Allen, the author of a series of refined and delicately worded romances, can write such phrases as "In a voice neither could scarce hear" and "Shake hands with me and ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead

... and And in mad tumults join! confederacies against the reign of God Almighty. 2 Confederate kings vain plots (1) devise Against the Almighty's reign: His Royal Title they deny, (2) What word does Whom God appointed Christ; that plural number belong to? 3 Let us reject their (2) laws, they cry, Their binding ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift

... of the Gods (or Doom of the Gods) is the central point of the Viking religion. The Regin (of which Ragna is genitive plural) are the ruling powers, often called Ginnregin (the great Gods), Uppregin (the high Gods), Thrymregin (the warrior Gods). The word is commonly used of the Aesir in Voeluspa; in Alvissmal the Regin seem to ...
— The Edda, Vol. 1 - The Divine Mythology of the North, Popular Studies in Mythology, - Romance, and Folklore, No. 12 • Winifred Faraday

... bone, we still have a large synovial cavity, and in close proximity to it bone. We may, in fact, and do get in it exactly similar changes to those termed 'synovitis' and 'arthritis' elsewhere. Therefore, we include the changes occurring in it in this chapter, and hence the plural use of the word to which ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks

... 'a person not human leads them to the worlds of Brahman' (Bri. Up. VI. 2, 15) by using the word 'world,' and moreover in the plural, determines the specification that the not-human person leads those only who meditate on Hiranyagarbha, who dwells within some particular world. Moreover, the text 'I enter the hall of Prajapati, the house' (Ch. Up. ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... Island of Cuba that which we call a cigar is called a tabaco (a tobacco) and when it is required to discriminate between the manufactured and unmanufactured article it is called tabaco torcido, or rolled tobacco. This, however, is only necessary when used in the plural. In Mexico a cigar is called a puro, and in Peru[62] and some of the other Spanish American countries it is called a cigarro puro, in contradistinction to the cigarro de papel, or cigarette. Cigarettes in Cuba are called cigarros, and their consumption is enormous. Strange ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... singular and plural) and 3 special cities* (si, singular and plural); Chagang-do (Chagang Province), Hamgyong-bukto (North Hamgyong Province), Hamgyong-namdo (South Hamgyong Province), Hwanghae-bukto (North Hwanghae Province), Hwanghae-namdo (South Hwanghae Province), Kaesong-si* (Kaesong ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... CILIA (plural of Lat. cilium, eyelash), in biology, the thread-like processes by the vibration of which many lowly organisms, or the male reproductive cells of higher organisms, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... documents, with no living tie to bind them together, and no significance beyond that of the time in which they were written. It would treat the Bible as a man-made book, or rather, as a man-made series of books, regardless of the fact that the plural "biblia," which once represented the thought of the church, has, under the influence of the divine Spirit, become "biblion" or Bible, a singular, and a proof that Christian consciousness has not been satisfied ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong

... supposing that all our demands can be accounted for by one universal underlying kind of motive than there is ground for supposing that all physical phenomena are cases of a single law. The elementary forces in ethics are probably as plural as those of physics are. The various ideals have no common character apart from the fact that they are ideals. No single abstract principle can be so used as to yield to the philosopher anything like a scientifically accurate and ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James

... are, I must acknowledge, very dull of understanding; they is in the plural number, and speaks is in the singular. Will you thus all your life offend grammar? [Footnote: Grammaire in Moliere's time was pronounced as grand'mere is now. Gammer seems the nearest approach ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)

... talk of my wife's interest in the mills than of her interests there; but we'll keep to the plural if you prefer it. Personally, I believe the terms should be interchangeable in the conduct of ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... name of the extensive primitive Malayan people of northern Luzon, because it is applied to a very large number of the mountain people by themselves and also has a recognized usage in ethnologic and other writings. Its form as "Ig-o-rot'" is adopted for both singular and plural, because it is both natural and phonetic, and, because, so far as it is possible to do so, it is thought wise to retain the simple native forms of such words as it seems necessary or best to incorporate in our language, ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... to happen," the girl said, with an acceptance of the plural which deepened the intimacy of the situation, and which was not displeasing to Verrian when she added, "If our friend's vehicle holds out." Then she turned her face full upon him, with what affected him as austere resolution, in continuing, "But I can't let you suppose that you're conveying ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... But later? Time modifies...rubs out...more quickly than you think...Go away, but let him hope...I'm going too—WE'RE going—" he stumbled on the plural—"in a very few weeks: going for a long time, probably. What you're thinking of now may never happen. We may not all be ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton

... but I couldn't pass the day without seeing you," he went on, speaking French, as he always did to avoid using the stiff Russian plural form, so impossibly frigid between them, and the dangerously ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... between Romans and Latins to be valid in law, and at the same time instituted in their case an accelerated civil process before sworn "recoverers" (-reciperatores-). As, contrary to Roman usage, which in other instances committed the decision to a single judge, these always sat in plural number and that number uneven, they are probably to be conceived as a court for the cognizance of commercial dealings, composed of arbiters from both nations and an umpire. They sat in judgment at the place where the contract was entered into, and were obliged to have the process ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... an examination of Suetonius, Life of Claudius, chapter 25, it seems likely that Dio wrote "cities" (plural), referring to all ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio

... our families are the best citizens of the Republic. Wife and children are the sources of patriotism, and conjugal and parental affection beget devotion to the country. The man who, undefiled with plural marriage, is surrounded in his single home with his wife and children has a stake in the country which inspires him with respect for its laws and courage for ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... "flag-ships" plural in original. Chapter XII et seq.: "St. Martinsville" corrected to "St. Martinville" Chapter XXI: "Brownville", Texas, corrected to "Brownsville". Chapter XXXIV: the Grant in temporary command of Getty's division is Brigadier-General Lewis Grant, not U. S. Grant as in the rest ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin

... prefer, as more logical, the plural form chansons de gestes, and have so written it in my Short History of French Literature (Oxford, 4th ed., 1892), to which I may not improperly refer the reader on the general subject. But of late years the fashion of dropping the s has prevailed, and, therefore, in a book ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... used for 'mother' is the same that is used for the division [tribe?] veve, with a plural sign ra veve. And it is not that a man's kindred are so called after his mother, but that his mother is called his kindred, as if she were the representative of the division to which he belongs; as if he were not the child of a particular ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... emendations of 'courtiers' and 'king,' as to the sense;—only it is not impossible that Shakspeare's dramatic language may allow of the word, 'brows' or 'faces' being understood after the word 'courtiers',' which might then remain in the genitive case plural. But the nominative plural makes excellent sense, and is sufficiently elegant, and sounds to my ear Shakspearian. What, however, is meant by 'our bloods no more obey the heavens?'—Dr. Johnson's assertion that 'bloods' signify 'countenances,' is, I think, mistaken ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... originally denoted but a single pipe, and hence the older English writers, when referring to the complete instrument, generally used the word in the plural number. "Father Schmidt and other famous organ-builders flourished in the latter part of the seventeenth century. The organ in Temple Church, London, was built by ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin

... It is also, and perhaps chiefly, in this case, a pun on the meaning of the plural noun "cenci," "rags," or "old rags." The cry of this, frequent in Rome, was at first mistaken by Shelley for a voice urging him to go on with his play. Mr. Browning has used it to indicate the comparative ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... English differed from modern English in having a much larger number of inflexions. The noun had five cases, and there were several declensions, just as in Latin; adjectives were declined, and had three genders; some pronouns had a dual as well as a plural number; and the verb had a much larger number of inflexions than it has now. The vocabulary of the language contained very few foreign elements. The poetry of the language employed head-rhyme or alliteration, and not end-rhyme, as we do now. The works of the poet Caedmon and ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn

... Upper House to introduce plural voting, the bill became law in January 1907, the peers insisting only upon the establishment of a fixed maximum number or numerus clausus, of non-hereditary peers, so as to prevent the resistance of the Upper Chamber from being overwhelmed at any critical moment ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... the matter of number. Grammatically, number with them is unrecognized. There exist no such things as plural forms. This singularity would be only too welcome to the foreign student, were it not that in avoiding the frying-pan the Tartars fell into the fire. For what they invented in place of a plural was quite as difficult to memorize, and even more ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell

... entrance-hall of Beuvry Station. It was small and crowded. The floor was covered with straw which we could not renew. After the first fortnight the population of this chamber increased rapidly; one or two of us spoke of himself hereafter in the plural. They gave far less trouble than we had expected, and, though always with some of us until the spring, suffered heavy casualties from the use of copious petrol and the baking of washed ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson

... hall. He handed his card to the girl and inquired for the Frau Professorin. There was a council of war on the spot, and the Frau Professorin sent word that she was "not at home." Grover then asked permission to see "the young ladies." It was a very disappointing message; the plural number was especially disheartening. The sisters, however, were equal to the occasion. Minchen and Gretchen nobly declared that they were "out." Accordingly there was nothing to do, except for Roeschen to receive the visitor. She donned her white muslin, stuck a Jacqueminot rose in her bosom, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various

... might of gimlet and of screw. Grin at the window, Williams, all is vain; The carpenter will come and let thee out again. Contrast with him the countenance serene And sweet remonstrance of the junior dean; The plural number and the accents mild, The language of a parent to a child. With plaintive voice the worthy man doth state, We've not been very regular of late. It should more carefully its chapels keep, And not make noises to disturb our sleep By having suppers ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler

... grade insensibly into each other, the bacteria may be grouped into three main types, so far as form is concerned. These are spherical, elongated, and spiral, and to these different types are given the names, respectively, coccus, bacillus and spirillum (plural, cocci, bacilli, spirilla) (fig. 1). A ball, a short rod, and a corkscrew serve as convenient models to illustrate ...
— Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology, 8th edition - A Concise Manual for the Use of Students in Dairying • H. L. Russell

... thought proper in the course of the work, provided that I affixed to them my initials; and, with the generosity which was natural to him, thus wrote in the preface: "The editors (for so much of the business has devolved on Mr. Cottle, that the plural term is necessary) have to acknowledge," &c. &c. "They have felt peculiar pleasure, as natives of the same city, in performing this act of justice to Chatterton's fame, and to the ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... town, conceiving that the word clause was in the plural number, would often talk of a claw in an act ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various

... to observe the forms of the imperative mood plural which occur so frequently throughout the poem in the Oriel copy. The forms ending in -eth are about 31 in number, of which 17 are of French, and 14 of A.S. origin. The words in which the ending -eth is dropped are 42, of which ...
— Caxton's Book of Curtesye • Frederick J. Furnivall

... in some of these instances the Canons are spoken of in the plural, when the particular infraction which occasions their mention relates only to one of them. This shows they were collected into a code, if, indeed, that need be proved; for, in truth, that various Canons ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... battery, wasn't it?" asked Gordon, "and two huts is plural. I said houses of the people. I couldn't say two houses of the people. Just you send this as you get it. You are not an American consul at the present moment. You are an under-paid agent of a cable company, and you send my ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... (pronounced broadly 'Arna') corresponds with our plural 'men;' An (pronounced 'Arn'), the singular, with 'man.' The word for woman is Gy (pronounced hard, as in Guy); it forms itself into Gy-ei for the plural, but the G becomes soft in the plural like Jy-ei. They have a proverb ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... has got at second hand from the lexicographer. Dr. Trench could also make large reclamations, and several others. There is beside an unpleasant assumption of superiority in the book. An author who says that paganus means village, who makes ocula the plural of oculus, and who supposes that in petto means in little, is not qualified to settle Dr. Webster's claims as a philologer, much less to treat him with contempt. The first two blunders we have cited may be slips of the pen or the press, but this cannot be ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... word at all in early Hebrew equivalent to our words "period" and "season." When such an idea was to be expressed, it was done by the use of the word "day," either in the singular, or more commonly in the plural. Thus, "the time of harvest;" "the season of the first ripe fruit," are literally "the days of harvest," "the days of the first ripe fruit." In Isaiah xxxiv. 8, the singular is used, and followed ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland

... that their deduction is a correct one, I beg to express it in my own words as follows:—There is no such process known to the English language as the formation of a noun-singular out of an adjective by the addition of "s": neither is there any process known by which a noun-plural can be formed from an adjective, without the previous formation of the singular in the same sense; except in such cases as "the rich, the poor, the noble," &c., where the singular form is used in a plural sense. C.B. instances "goods, the shallows, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 36. Saturday, July 6, 1850 • Various

... Charity Cora, eagerly, hoping, from Donald's plural way of putting it, that she and Ella Elizabeth possibly were to have a share in the sport; whereat Daniel David, guessing her thoughts, answered for Donald, with a cutting, "Why, Queen Victoria and the royal princess, to be sure. Who ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge

... it left Dr. Bonar's hands. Besides the change of metaphors, the first personal pronoun singular is changed to the plural. There was strength, and ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth

... states that dun in its original and restricted sense means "Enclosure or fortress, being closely related to A.S. tun, Eng. town.... The diminutive, or noun plural, yields innumerable names, like Dinnans and Dinnance, in Ayrshire and Galloway; Duning and Dinnings in Dumfriesshire; and Downan, near Ballantrae." Ought not Sir Herbert to have added Dunnin or ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various

... excellent fox-hunter, and as excellent a companion over his bottle at the end of the chace—he was prodigal of his fortune, where his pleasures were concerned, and as those pleasures were chiefly social, his sporting companions and his mistresses (for these were also of the plural number) partook largely of ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald

... singular at best: More plural is my Second: My Third is far the pluralest - So plural-plural, I protest ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll

... found a home because it found a free man. On the eve of its appearance, it was hung up for a month because it was felt that whereas the booksellers might display a book containing a certain passage which referred to a woman's bosom, they would not do so if it contained a plural synonym. (I offer abject apologies for these dreadful details.) And when it finally appeared, the main portion of the English Press cried to heaven against it, and a smaller section clamoured for disciplinary action. ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... in substance; Power, Wisdom, and Love assume in Him a triple Personality, so that in all tongues singular and plural are alike applicable to Him. He is spirit; he is the circle which circumscribes everything and which nothing ever circumscribes; immense, eternal, immutable, He is the Primal out of which all is darkness. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... Professor Canney and Principal Bennett tell me that the derivation of duda-im from dodim is improbable; and the former authority suggests that duda-im may be merely the plural of dud, a "pot".[383] Now I have already explained how a pot came to symbolize a woman or a goddess, not merely in Egypt, but also in Southern India, and in Mycenaean Greece, and, in fact, the Mediterranean generally.[384] Hence ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith

... 'God in space and the rainbow sign across;' Mpambe, 'God Almighty' (or rather 'pre-excellent'); Mlezi, 'God the Sustainer,' and Mulungu, 'God who is spirit.' Mulungu God, 'not spirits or fetish.' 'You can't put the plural, as God is One,' say the natives. 'There are no idols called gods, and spirits are spirits of people who have died, not gods.' Idols are Zitunzi-zitunzi. 'Spirits are supposed to be with Mulungu.' God made the world and man. Our author says 'when the chief or people ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang

... his external actions testify a love of society, and communion. In heaven there are orders of angels, and armies of martyrs, and in that house many mansions; in earth, families, cities, churches, colleges, all plural things; and lest either of these should not be company enough alone, there is an association of both, a communion of saints which makes the militant and triumphant church one parish; so that Christ was not out of his diocess when he was upon the earth, nor ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne

... in political life. Under pressure of public opinion, the demand for a revision of the Constitution was at last taken into consideration in 1891, and in 1893 a new law granted universal suffrage tempered by plural voting. In 1902 a new campaign was launched by the allied Liberal-Socialist opposition in favour of universal suffrage pure and simple, without obtaining any result, but when, in 1913, a general strike supported the demand, the Catholic Government promised that the ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts

... And they said: Paul, thou readest our language as badly as thou speakest it; we have inscriptions "to unknown gods" but not to the unknowable God. Didst go to school at Tarsus, yet canst not tell the plural from the singular? To which I answered: then you are so religious-minded that you would not offend any god whose name you might not have heard, and so favour him by the inscription to an unknown God? But some of your philosophers, ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... is the pilot of the cloud? Where does he sit? What lures the pilot? Who are the "genii"? (A genius—plural, genii—is a good or evil spirit which was supposed by the ancients to guard a man and control his destinies. In a sense the spirit of the waters may be said to control the lightning.) Who move "in the depths of the purple ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... shall we dream of; far be such an attempt from us. It consists of many Confederations, and out of each, PRO and CONTRA, spring many. Like the Lernean Hydra, or even Hydras in a plural condition. A many-headed dog: and how many whelps it had,—I cannot give even the cipher of them, or I would! One whelp Confederation, that of Cracow, is distinguished by having frequently or generally been "drunk;" and of course its procedures had often a vinous character. [In ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... the Isle of Wight is reached, where its chief stream, the Medina, flows into the strait through an estuary about five hundred yards wide. Here is Cowes, divided by the river into the West Cow and the East Cow, the plural form of the name being modern. It is a popular bathing-place, but gets the most fame from being the headquarters of the Royal Yacht Club; their house is the old castle at the Medina entrance, built by Henry VIII., it is said, with portions of the masonry ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... disease to distinguish it from the Great Pox or syphilis, the French disease, or Morbus Gallicus which attained the proportions of an epidemic in Europe about 1494. The expression "The Pox" in the older medical literature always refers to the Lues Venereal The word "pox" is the plural form of pock; the spelling "pox" is phonetic; "pocks" is the ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86

... afternoons. Did you use to dote on horse-chestnuts? Queer boys should. But I rather like them myself, in a way,—out of the way! We have picked up a hundred and seventeen." Miss Salome dropped into the plural number innocently, and Elizabeth laughed over John's shoulder. Elizabeth did the reading between the lines. John was only ...
— The Very Small Person • Annie Hamilton Donnell

... my horses"—the plural abashed my friend—"at the Chevaliers'. If you throw yourself on their mercy, they'll treat you well. I'll send ...
— Buying a Horse • William Dean Howells

... to follow after his kind; but by Thy direction proveth what is that good, that acceptable, and perfect will of Thine: yea, Thou teachest him, now made capable, to discern the Trinity of the Unity, and the Unity of the Trinity. Wherefore to that said in the plural. Let us make man, is yet subjoined in the singular, And God made man: and to that said in the plural. After our likeness, is subjoined in the singular, After the image of God. Thus is man renewed in the knowledge of God, after the image of Him that created him: and being made spiritual, ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

... that there is an infinite without us, is there not an infinite within us? Are not these two infinites (what an alarming plural!) superposed, the one upon the other? Is not this second infinite, so to speak, subjacent to the first? Is it not the latter's mirror, reflection, echo, an abyss which is concentric with another abyss? Is this second infinity intelligent also? Does it think? Does ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... many characteristics in common, there is an individuality in each that distinguishes him from the rest. He stands out in bold relief—I by myself, I. He feels and appreciates his importance. He knows no plural. The word 'our' belongs to landsmen; 'my' is the sailor's phrase—my ship, my captain, my messmate, my watch on deck, 'my eyes!' 'you lubber, don't you know that's me?' I like to listen to their yarns and their jokes, and to hear them sing their simple ditties. ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... extraordinary English—turning words in the singular into words in the plural, and banishing from the British vocabulary the copulative conjunction "and"—Herr Grosse announced his readiness to sit down to lunch. He was politely recalled from the Mayonnaise to the patient by ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins

... catalogued their native literature under several heads, probably as an aid to the memory of the professional poets or story-tellers whose stock-in-trade it was, and to one of these divisions they gave the name Tainte, plural of Tain. By this term, which is most often followed by the genitive plural bo, "cows," they meant "a driving," or "a reaving," or even "a drove" or "herd" of cattle. It is only by extension of meaning that this title is applied to the Tain Bo Cualnge, the most famous representative ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown

... Not very clear. I know the people I live among don't know everything. I grant you all that. But Woman Free! Woman Free! Madame Mafflu wants to know what liberty—or what liberties—singular or plural; do you take me?—ha! ha! ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux

... anfractuosus, winding), twisting and turning, circuitousness; a word usually employed in the plural to denote winding channels such as occur in the depths of the sea, mountains, or the fissures (sulci) separating the convolutions of the brain, or, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various

... would be at the trouble of referring to the instrument itself, he would see that the backers of Dr. Reasono were mentioned in the plural number, while that of Sir John himself was alluded to only in ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... translation is, "On the spheres that I saw and on the paintings of world-maps it is this region." The plural number is used in both cases. Of the globes of this date, i.e., 1492 or earlier, that of Behaim is the only one that has come down to us. Of the world maps Toscanelli's, no longer extant, may have been one, but it is to be noted ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various

... by woman. His life centres round woman. You observe I use the singular. I do that because it is so much more plural than the plural in this case. His life is passed in love-affairs, in a sort ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... the spirits" is a primary religious duty for the Chinaman. The spirits, however, are an ill-defined set of beings; they are generally spoken of in the plural number, and sacrifice was offered to them as a body, no particular spirits being named. The spirits are connected with natural objects, every part of nature has its spirit. The sun, the moon, the five planets, clouds, rain, wind, the five great mountains, but also every smaller mountain, ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies

... God had been offered in Ku, at the commencement of the expedition; that to the Father of War, on the army's arriving at the borders of Khung. We can hardly tell who is intended by the Father of War. K Hs and others would require the plural 'Fathers,' saying the sacrifice was to Hwang T and Khih Y, who are found engaged in hostilities far back in the mythical period of Chinese history. But Khih Y appears as a rebel, or opposed to the One man in all the country who ...
— The Shih King • James Legge

... them in visible and invisible wars; and should be among them an eternal king." Nor is that observation of a learned foreigner of my acquaintance to be despised, who takes notice, that as seeds in the plural, must signify posterity, so seed in the singular may signify either posterity, or a single person; and that in this promise of all nations being happy in the seed of Abraham, or Isaac, or Jacob, etc., it is always used in the singular. To which I shall add, ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... an open throat: he told us, however, some time after, when we had taught him to speak a little English, that they were going, with their kings, to fight a great battle. When he said kings, we asked him, how many kings? He said, there were five nation (we could not make him understand the plural s,) and that they all joined to go against two nation. We asked him, What made them come up to us? He said, "To makee te great wonder look."—Where it is to be observed, that all those natives, as also those of Africa, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... (on pronouncing which one had to join one's fingers together, and to put a particular emphasis upon the two sh's in the word) meant anything fresh, healthy, and comely, but not elegant; a substantive used in the plural meant an undue partiality for the object which it denoted; and so forth, and so forth. At the same time, the meaning depended considerably upon the expression of the face and the context of the conversation; so that, ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy

... may be noted in the text of Homer. The Sirens, the first or implicit stage, are sometimes spoken of in the dual and sometimes in the plural; Homer would seem to imply that they are two in number, yet they always act and sing as one. That is, the dualism or separation is as yet implicit; but in the second stage (that of Scylla and Charybdis) it will become explicit with decided emphasis. Later legend made the Sirens ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider

... Lada, and sometimes in the plural Ladir, was the old capital of Drontheim, before Nidaros — the present Drontheim — was founded. Drontheim was originally the name of the country round the firth of the same name, and is not used in the old sagas for ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders

... East Indies lay in the remotest part of the east, going eastwards, which he meant to discover in a western course, it might well be called India. After the actual discovery, and when both New Spain and Peru were found out, the name was made plural, and the new world was called the West Indies. These West Indies are the countries comprehended within the limits assigned to the crown of Castile and Leon, consisting of one hemisphere, or half the globe, being 180 degrees of longitude. These limits commenced at a meridian, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... verse of the ninth chapter of Deuteronomy, where the received version reads, "Thou art to pass over Jordan this day, to go in to possess nations greater and mightier than thyself," the corresponding passage of the fragments substitutes the plural for the singular, "Ye" for '"Thou," while for "g'dolim," the word translated "greater," it reads "rabbim." But a far more complete idea of the variations of text and signification may be obtained from a comparison of the text ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various

... "swans" in the plural. The scene when I saw it, with its still and dim lake, under the dusky hills, was one of utter loneliness: there was one swan, and one only, stemming the water, and the pathetic loneliness of the region ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... enemies report, drive their men but they themselves lead to battle. They are idolized by the nation as a whole and by the army in particular. They do not address the soldiers of the rank and file in the second person singular, but in the more respectful second person plural. ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood

... his cause, as elucidated by his providence,—the signs of the times; for so shall he "keep his garments," when others are "found naked."—"And he gathered them" or rather "they gathered," (for the singular verb agrees with its nominative plural neuter as usual,)—the "unclean spirits gathered the kings of the earth" to the destined place. This hinders not but that these antichristian enemies of the church are brought together by the Almighty. Just so he sent the king of Assyria ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele

... This is the original of the Syriac word for the Signs of the Zodiac malwsh (plural of malwsh). The Syrians added to it an m, thus giving it ...
— The Babylonian Legends of the Creation • British Museum

... The sites of ancient towns and villages are usually conspicuous in Palestine, and are recognized in the local nomenclature. They are denoted by the words tall, plural tulul, meaning 'mound', and khirbah, plural khirab meaning 'ruin'. These words are commonly spelt in English tell and khirbet (less correctly khurbet) and we use these more familiar forms here. As a rule, though not invariably, the sense of these terms is distinguished. A tell is ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various

... by Whose revelation he knew of their sin. With regard to Joseph it is probable that he warned his brethren, though Scripture does not say so. Or we may say that the sin was public with regard to his brethren, wherefore it is stated in the plural that he ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... cultivation, Parliamentary debate itself become a mockery—these calamities were all due to long Parliaments; and would be cured if once a year—on June 1st—a fresh Parliament was elected by the votes of every man over eighteen—by ballot and without any plural voting—and a payment of two guineas a day was made to members on their attendance. Of course, Cartwright could not help writing "all are by nature free, all are by nature equal"—no political reformer in the eighteenth ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton

... and of soul.... My fairies must be thy fairies and my gods thy gods. Hand-in-hand we must thrill with a single rapture—'le coeur en fleur et l'ame en flamme.'" For myself I am well content (whether he addresses me in the second person singular or plural, or both—as here) to have vicariously achieved such heights in the person of so admirable ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 5, 1920 • Various

... signification, which is in relation to our surroundings. Consequently, in order to judge of a word's signification or co-signification, we must consider the things which are around us, in which a word derived from some form is never used in the plural unless there are several supposita. For a man who has on two garments is not said to be "two persons clothed," but "one clothed with two garments"; and whoever has two qualities is designated in the singular as "such by reason ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... with the nouns which they qualify. This and that qualify nouns in the singular; these and those belong to nouns in the plural. ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel

... consisted of a man with one or more wives and their children, all of whom dwelt amicably together, often under one roof, although some men of rank and position provided a separate lodge for each wife. There were, indeed, few plural marriages except among the older and leading men, and plural wives were usually, though not necessarily, sisters. A marriage might honorably be dissolved for cause, but there was very little infidelity or immorality, ...
— The Soul of the Indian - An Interpretation • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... is a single life-unit. This is the naive belief that is everywhere current among men today. Inquire among your own friends and acquaintances and you will find that not one in a thousand realizes that he is, to put it jocularly, singularly plural, that he is in fact an assemblage ...
— Psychology and Achievement • Warren Hilton

... speaks of 'a perfect man' in the singular and not of 'men' in the plural, as he has already described the result of the union of Jew and Gentile as being the making 'of twain one new man.' This remarkable expression sets forth, in the strongest terms, the vital unity which connects all members of the one ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... the Italian money "lira money," because the lire, which is worth about the same as the French franc, or twenty cents, is the common unit of Italian currency. "Lira" is the plural of "lire." ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock

... that these islands are the group now known as that of PULO CONDORE, in old times an important landmark, and occasional point of call, on the route to China. The group is termed Sundar Fulat (Fulat representing the Malay Pulo or Island, in the plural) in the Arab Relations of the 9th century, the last point of departure on the voyage to China, from which it was a month distant. This old record gives us the name Sondor; in modern times we have it as Kondor; Polo combines ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... the Almighty has endowed us all with a certain amount of brains; but we don't all use them." (Cheers).—Mr. TICKLER in the debate on the Plural Voting Bill. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 24, 1914 • Various

... A rather crude English adaptation of the Latin term "Punctus contra punctum" which refers to the notes as punct[u]s (plural) or dots which were pricked with a stylus into the medieval manuscripts. In this phrase the emphasis is on the contra, signifying a combination of different melodies and rhythms, and calling ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding

... the other nations had also its peculiar name in the Council, distinct from the mere local designation by which it was commonly called. Thus the Caniengas had for their "Council name" the term Tehadirihoken. This is the plural form of the name of their leading chief, Tekarihoken. Opinions differ much among the Indians as to the meaning of this name. Cusick, the Tuscarora historian, defines it "a speech divided," and apparently refers it to the ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale

... always contrasts with spirit; so to confound the two is to ignore a distinction upon which everything depends in any, except the materialistic, philosophy. When the term substance is used in the currency of the term matter it admits of the plural form as well as the singular. Indeed, all the primordial elements known in chemistry are known as so many different substances. It is unscientific and absurd to confound all these elements by claiming the one-substance theory. It has been called "the hog philosophy," on account ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 7, July, 1880 • Various

... these perpetual corrections of careless reading and mistaken meaning—the light called into existence in the third verse of the first chapter of Genesis is as evidently a different word from the two lights spoken of in the fourteenth verse, as the singular is different from the plural; and the thing signified by it is as distinct from the things spoken of in the fourteenth verse, as the abstract is from the concrete; as, when I say of the first, "light travels 195,000 miles per second," but mean a totally distinct subject when ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... low, the boat was at length turned homeward, Bass writes "we did it reluctantly," coupling his willing little company with himself in regrets that discovery could not be pushed farther than they had been able to pursue it. Throughout his diary he writes in the first person plural, and he records no instance of complaint of the hardships endured or of ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... plural of corps spelled? Ans. Corps. How pronounced? Ans. Cores.—What is meant by the ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton

... domestic situation in Byron's house at the time of his wife's expulsion was one so grave as to call for family counsel; for Lady Byron, generally accurate, speaks in the plural number. 'His nearest relatives' certainly includes Mrs. Leigh. 'His family' includes more. That some of Lord Byron's own relatives were cognisant of facts at this time, and that they took Lady Byron's side, is shown by one of ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... meaning 'correction.' Zeller has noted a fondness for substantives ending in -ma and -sis, such as georgema, diapauma, epithumema, zemioma, komodema, omilema; blapsis, loidoresis, paraggelsis, and others; also a use of substantives in the plural, which are commonly found only in the singular, maniai, atheotetes, phthonoi, phoboi, phuseis; also, a peculiar use of prepositions in composition, as in eneirgo, apoblapto, dianomotheteo, dieiretai, ...
— Laws • Plato

... the somewhat slovenly use of the editorial we, which at the fag-end of passages sometimes dropped into I. [Upon my remarking upon this to Rossetti he remembered incidentally that a similar confounding of the singular and plural number of the pronoun produces marvellously suggestive effects in a very different work, Macbeth, where the kingly we is tripped up by the guilty I in many ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine

... proposed to give the vote to every woman of property if she chose to take the trouble to get it, and at the same time enfranchise only about one-tenth or one-fifteenth of the working women of the country. That was simply a roundabout way of doubling the plural voters and no democrat could possibly support it, so long as there remained a single alternative. The solution that most appeals to me is the one embodied in the Dickinson Bill, that is to say, a measure conferring the vote on women householders and on the wives of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... respiration being continued, diminished gradually and were succeeded by analogous to gentle pressure on all the muscles.' That the respiration was not 'diminished,' is not only clear by the subsequent context, but by the use of the plural, 'were.' The sentence, no doubt, was thus intended: 'In less than half a minute, the respiration [being continued, these feelings] diminished gradually, and were succeeded by [a sensation] analogous to gentle pressure on all the muscles.' A hundred ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... V. xiii. 3., mentions this ancient prediction, and its currency through the East, in nearly the same terms as Suetonius. The coming power is in both instances described in the plural number, profecti; "those shall come forth;" and Tacitus applies it to Titus as well as Vespasian. The prophecy is commonly supposed to have reference to a passage in Micah, v. 2, "Out of thee (Bethlehem-Ephrata) shall He come forth, to be ruler in Israel." Earlier prophetic ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... her plural possessive. "The point is of course that if there was a conscious bargain, and our action on Mrs. Brash is to deprive her of the sense of keeping her side of it, various things may happen that won't be good either for her or for ...
— The Beldonald Holbein • Henry James

... An-nik'ki. Ilmarinen's sister. An'te-ro. Another name for Wipanen, or Antero Wipunen. Dus'ter-land. The Northland; Pimentola. Et'e-le'tar. A daugter of the South-wind. Fire-Child. A synonym of Panu. Frost. The English for Pakkanen. Hal'lap-yo'ra. A lake in Finland. Hal'ti-a (plural Haltiat). The Genius of Finnish mythology. Het'e-wa'ne. The Finnish name of the Pleiades. Hi'si (original Hiisi). The Evil Principle; also called Jutas, Lempo, and Piru. Mon'ja-tar. The daughter of the Pine-tree. Hor'na. A sacred rock in Finland. I'ku-Tur'so. ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.

... most plural thing I know. We are all supposed to believe in the same thing in different ways. It is like eating out of the same dish with different coloured spoons. And we beat each other with the spoons, ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens

... meditating, not on this, but on his own personal wrongs, as he led the little cavalcade in an easterly direction. First, he had been deprived of that glass of Malvoisie— which would probably have been plural rather than singular—and of a conversation with Lord Basset, which might have resulted in something of interest: and life was exceedingly devoid of interest, thought Mr Godfrey, in a pessimistic spirit. ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... David. "It's much easier to understand the plural of girl. Girl in the first person ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon

... learned that they are the tokens of the Bedaween Arabs, by which one tribe is distinguished from another. In common parlance they are called the Ausam (plural of Wasam) of ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... are having events at the theater, and not of a pleasant sort. Mr. Brunton, the manager, is in "difficulties" (civilized plural for debt), and it seems that last night during the play one of his creditors put an execution into the theater, and laid violent hands upon the receipts, which, as it was my father's benefit, rather dismayed us. So after breakfast this morning, having put out my dresses for my favorite Portia ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... the paper were as follows: [The joke of this bill consists chiefly in its being written in very bad Russian, with continual mistakes as to plural and singular, prepositions ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy

... syllable recalls Hopi methods of forming their plural, but is not characteristic of them, and the word Totonteac has a Hopi sound. The supposed derivation of Tonto from Spanish tonto, "fool," is mentioned, elsewhere. The so-called Tonto Apache was probably an intruder, the cause of ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes

... 29: Toward your children)—Ver. 151. The plural "liberos" is here used to signify the one son which Menedemus has. So in the Hecyra, l. 217, the same word is used to signify but one daughter. This was a common mode of expression in the times of the ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence



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