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Meaning   /mˈinɪŋ/   Listen
Meaning

noun
1.
The message that is intended or expressed or signified.  Synonyms: import, significance, signification.  "The significance of a red traffic light" , "The signification of Chinese characters" , "The import of his announcement was ambiguous"
2.
The idea that is intended.  Synonym: substance.



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"Meaning" Quotes from Famous Books



... going to expose himself after all. I accused him of meaning to stand for Middlemarch on the Liberal side, and he looked silly and never denied it—talked about the independent ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... she asked. "Do you really think that our people are so far apart? Between you and me, for instance," she added, meaning to ask the question naturally enough, but suddenly losing confidence and looking away from him,—"between you and me there seems no radical difference of race. You might almost be an Englishman—not one of these men of ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... summers have rolled over his head; such are the good effects of temperance, system, and attention to diet. Here he is known by the designation of Mr. Evergreen; a name, perhaps, affixed to him with a double meaning, combining in view the freshness of his age and his known attachment to theatricals, of which pursuits, as a recreation, he is devotedly fond. As a broker, lottery contractor, and a man of business, Mr. D——-1 stands No. ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... pulsating from end to end of the land. To her hut at Itu came Government and trade experts, consulting her on all manner of subjects, and obtaining information which no other one could supply. The natives, on the other hand, came to her enquiring as to the meaning of the white man's movements, and she was able to reassure them and keep their confidence unshaken in the beneficial ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... oracle was always trustworthy, for the meaning of the name Urim and Tummim is in the fact that "these answers spread light and truth," but not every high priest succeeded in obtaining them. Only a high priest who was permeated with the Holy Spirit, and over whom rested the Shekinah, ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... foundation of the present city of Quebec in the month of June, 1608, or three years after the removal of the little Acadian colony from St. Croix Island to the basin of the Annapolis. The name Quebec is now generally admitted to be an adaptation of an Indian word, meaning a contraction of the river or strait, a distinguishing feature of the St. Lawrence at this important point. The first buildings were constructed by Champlain on a relatively level piece of ground, now occupied by a market-house and close to a famous old church erected in the days ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot

... eager look, and then, seeming suddenly to penetrate its meaning, cast down her radiant eyes, while the color mounted into her cheeks. "You thought," she said, almost sternly, "that I did not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... to a Dutchman," said Dalton, meaning one of those Pennsylvanians of German descent who had settled in the rich ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler

... now there are ladies in College, There are ladies in Chapels and Halls; No doubt 'tis a pure love of knowledge That brings them within our old walls; For they talk about Goldie's 'beginning'; Know the meaning of 'finish' and 'scratch,' And will bet even gloves on our winning The Boat ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling

... the ripe fruit of New Testament evangelism. They appear in history one really on each side of Jesus; one going before him to prepare the way for him, and the other coming after him to declare the meaning of his mission. They were united in Jesus; both of ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... statue, full of double meaning, which seems to exult because we appear like locusts when we stand near it, it is neither a man nor a beast nor a rock What is it, then? What is its meaning? Or that smile which it has If Thou admire the everlasting endurance of the pyramids, ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... is kind to the fox in his arctic home, and in the winter turns his coat snow white so that he may easily escape his enemies—especially men, who seek his beautiful fur and edible body. He is skilled in his distrust of wires, sticks, guns and strings! No man knows better than he the meaning of foot-tracks in the snow, and how long they have been there, and which way they lead; thus, those that survive their enemies have acquired extreme wisdom, and keep carefully away from everything that is at all suspicious to their eyes ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon

... who ever went through the old 53rd Stationary hospital will ever forget his homesickness and feeling of outrage at the treatment by the perhaps well-meaning but nevertheless callous and coarse British personnel. Think of tea, jam and bread for sick and wounded men. An American medical sergeant who has often eaten with the British sergeants at that hospital, Sergeant Glenn ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... endowment, says: "The Twelve took Joseph's wives after his death. Kimball and Young took most of them; the daughter of Kimball was one of Joseph's wives. I heard her say to her mother: 'I will never be sealed to my father [meaning as a wife], and I would never have been sealed [married] to Joseph had I known it was anything more than ceremony. I was young, and they deceived me by saying the salvation of our whole family depended on it.' ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... Tim. ii. 12),"I suffer not a woman to teach," and of two well-known passages of Euripides and Juvenal against learned women or bluestockings, to show that he was quite aware of these passages, but saw nothing in them against his real meaning.] Here, at length, in the eleventh chapter, we arrive at the great question, Has such a system of schools been anywhere established? No, answers Comenius, and abundantly proves his negative. Schools ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... days of old, O what wonders had been told Of thy lively countenance, And thy humid eyes that dance In the midst of their own brightness; In the very fane of lightness. Over which thine eyebrows, leaning, Picture out each lovely meaning: In a dainty bend they lie, Like two streaks across the sky, Or the feathers from a crow, Fallen on a bed of snow. Of thy dark hair that extends Into many graceful bends: As the leaves of Hellebore Turn to whence ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats

... distract her attention from the guests. These artistic English people are so easily shocked. They don't understand Strauss, nor indeed anything until it is quite out of date. I want to make Hell at least as attractive as it is painted; a place as well as a condition within the meaning of the Act. Full of wit, ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross

... assured he had discovered both our ships. We fired a gun, upon her nearer approach, to bring her to an anchor, but immediately she fired five guns by way of salute, and spread her English ancient. Then we began to guess it was friend William, but wondered what was the meaning of his being in a sloop, whereas we sent him away in a ship of near 300 tons; but he soon let us into the whole history of his management, with which we had a great deal of reason to be very well satisfied. As soon as he had brought the sloop ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe

... "Meaning us, my joy?" said Buttons, in Italian. "Not just yet, I believe, and not for some time. But how do you ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille

... eggs?" "No." "What do you live on?" "Nada" (nothing). The utter indifference of this boy, and the tone of his answer "Nada," attracted the attention of Colonel Mason, who had been listening to our conversation, and who knew enough of Spanish to catch the meaning, and he exclaimed with some feeling, "So we get nada for our breakfast." I felt mortified, for I had held out the prospect of a splendid breakfast of meat and tortillas with rice, chickens, eggs, etc., at the ranch of my friend ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... "and you might have passed, if I had not known your voice. But I remind you that you come from the Alamo. You see our flag, and you know its meaning." ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler

... he believed in it, taught it and upheld it. I pronounce it and denounce it the infamy of infamies. It robs our language of every sweet and tender word in it. It takes the fire-side away forever. It takes the meaning out of the words father, mother, sister, brother, and turns the temple of love into a vile den where crawl the slimy snakes of lust and hatred. I was in Utah a little while ago, and was on the mountain where God ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll

... as Dewey says, "requires getting outside of it, seeing it as another would see it, considering what points of contact it has with the life of another so that it may be gotten into such form that he can appreciate its meaning." The result of such a conscious effort to communicate an experience is to transform it. The experience, after it has been communicated, is not the same for either party to the communication. To publish or to give publicity to an event ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... today...I arrived," answered Levin, in his emotion not at once understanding her question. "I was meaning to come and see you," he said; and then, recollecting with what intention he was trying to see her, he was promptly ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... 'What's the meaning of all this?' Anna Vassilyevna was thinking. (She could not guess that the preceding evening at the English club a discussion had arisen in a corner of the smoking-room as to the incapacity of Russians to make speeches. 'Which of us can speak? Mention any one!' ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev

... happiness, 'health, peace, and competence.' Aye, but what is peace, and what is competence? If, by peace, he mean that tranquillity of mind which innocence and good deeds produce, he is right and clear so far; for we all know that, without health, which has a well-known positive meaning, there can be no happiness. But competence is a word of unfixed meaning. It may, with some, mean enough to eat, drink, wear and be lodged and warmed with; but, with others, it may include horses, carriages, and footmen laced ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett

... up. In the death of the body the component elements—water, lime, iron, phosphorus, magnesia, and so on—remain the same, but their organization is changed. Is that all? Is this a true analogy? The meaning of the printed page, the idea embodied, is the main matter. Can this idea be said to exist independent of the type? Only in the mind that reads the page, and then not permanently. Then it is only an arrangement of molecules of matter in the brain, which ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs

... like a man upon whom emotion has spent all its force; only, when I had finished, he gave one groan, and then, as if he feared I would mistake the meaning of this evidence of suffering, he ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green

... we lost the latter. As we were setting our foresail, a musket-shot was fired from the Yacht Wesel, upon which we dropped our other anchor again; when towards the evening the weather had somewhat improved, we sent our orangbay to the Wesel, to learn the meaning of the musket-shot; when the men returned, they informed us that the Wesel had also lost an anchor, but that the buoyrope had remained entire, so that we remained here till the following day in order to recover ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres

... the study of Peter Ruff's life, so far as possible, to maintain under all circumstances an equable temperament, to refuse to recognize the meaning of the word "nerves," and to be guided in all his actions by that profound common sense which was one of his natural gifts. Yet there were times when, like any other ordinary person, he suffered acutely ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... strong impression that the better a discourse is, as an oration, the worse it is as a lecture. The flow of the discourse carries you on without proper attention to its sense; you drop a word or a phrase, you lose the exact meaning for a moment, and while you strive to recover yourself, the speaker has passed on to ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... killed at Corsica, in 1794, he became the next heir to the title. In 1797, a friend, meaning to compliment the boy, said, "We shall have the pleasure some day of reading your speeches in the House of Commons," he, with precocious consciousness, replied, "I hope not. If you read any speeches of mine, it will be in the House of Lords." Similarly, ...
— Byron • John Nichol

... her she would kill herself with watching him. But when she crept through that little arch to go away, he would look at her as if his soul was parting from his body. And then she would come back again, and say she had not shaken hands with the honest trooper, (meaning me,) and would whisper me, to keep up his spirits; and so they would trifle away half the night."—"'Serjeant,' the Colonel used to say to me, bless his good heart! though I never was more than a corporal, 'that girl has the courage of a lion.' 'Aye, ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... like a currant, except that it is double the size, and grows on a bush like a privy, the size of a damson, and of a delicious flavour; its Indian name means rabbit-berries. We then passed, at the distance of about seven miles, the mouth of a creek on the north side, called by an Indian name, meaning Whitestone river. The beautiful prairie of yesterday, has changed into one of greater height, and very smooth and extensive. We encamped on the south side, at ten and a quarter miles, and found ourselves ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... words. It was as if his passion stood apart from them, dominating them, lashing him with desire. Nothing she might say, no necessity nor effort, could free them. The uselessness of words smote him. She spoke again, an urgent flow of dulcet sound against his ear; but it was without meaning, lost in the drumming of his blood. The stir of feet approached, and he released her, moving to the fireplace. It was Caroline. She stopped awkwardly, advancing a needless explanation of a trivial errand from the ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... day to see the work, asked Andrea what figure that was; to which Andrea answered that it was Discretion; and the Pope added: "If thou wouldst have her suitably accompanied, put Patience beside her." The painter understood what the meaning of the Holy Father was, and he never said another word. The work finished, the Pope sent him back to the Duke with much favour and ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari

... but you know the sort of thing I mean, that sounds so breezy and stimulating. And they've helped me understand the immensity of the landscapes and the ideas out here, the big, throbbing, rough young life, and under it all, as Whitman says, "a meaning—Democracy, American Democracy." Really it's been interesting, the jolliest time of my life, and it's got me all unsettled. More than once in watching some scene typical of the region, the plain, busy, earnest people, I've actually thrilled to think that this was ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson

... thought everything was a person, in the loose meaning then possessed by personality, and many such "persons" were worshipped— earth, sun, moon, sea, wind, etc. This led later to more complete personification, and the sun or earth divinity or spirit ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch

... to understand what is the meaning of all this futile discussion as to the respective merits of the various kinds of road pavement. There cannot be a moment's doubt, as to which is, far and away, the cheapest, the safest, and—in a word—the—best. Without any hesitation, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, January 18, 1890 • Various

... pictures but bas-reliefs, the figures of which almost step and struggle out of the marble. They did not seem very admirable as works of art, none of them explaining themselves or attracting me long enough to study out their meaning; but, as part of the architecture of the church, they had a good effect. Out of the busy square two or three persons had stepped into this bright and calm seclusion to pray and be devout, for a little while; and, between sunrise and sunset ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... to his standard that morning. They didn't profess to understand the meaning of it all, but they could see that the master had sacrificed something to do them justice, and with the native chivalry of boys, they made his cause theirs, and did all they could to ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed

... whole battalion in a large field enclosed by hedges. The weather is splendid; fine camping weather. We had lunch about 2 p.m. Then I played a game something like tennis (badminton). The Colonel is very keen on it. When he saw that I was going to play he said, 'Oh, I'll back the "General,"' meaning me! Then he showed me how to play. He has been most agreeable with me all day. Major Brighten has started calling me 'The Field-Marshal!' I think I cause these ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd

... you the truth, sir," he said, "I hadn't been long married at that time, and my wife's name, before she changed it for mine, was the same as the lady's—meaning the name of Glyde, sir. The lady mentioned it herself. 'Is your name on your boxes, ma'am?' says I. 'Yes,' says she, 'my name is on my luggage—it is Lady Glyde.' 'Come!' I says to myself, 'I've a bad head for ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... not comprehend his technical language, and her lovely mouth let up for a moment on the cream almonds. But soon his meaning flashed upon her, and she seized an axe that her husband was accustomed to keep by his bedside to mangle his servants with, and struck open Lord Oakhurst's cabinet containing his private papers, and with eager hands opened the document which she ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... admits, that, "When it is said, 'The house is building,' the meaning is easily obtained; though," he strangely insists, "it is exactly opposite to the assertion."—P. 89. He endeavours to show, moreover, by a fictitious example made for the purpose, that the progressive form, if used in both voices, will be liable ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... the first to declare that the keynote of every policy was the advancement of power. This term, however, has acquired, since the German Reformation, a meaning other than that of the shrewd Florentine. To him power was desirable in itself; for us "the State is not physical power as an end in itself, it is power to protect and promote the higher interests"; "power must justify itself ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi

... off-hand. As the death penalty is practically abolished in Russia, except for high treason, which is not tried in villages, the Russians are at a loss to explain what the writer can have mistaken for a gallows. There are two "guesses" current as to his meaning: the two uprights and cross-beam of the village swing; or the upright, surmounted by a cross-board, on which is inscribed the number of inhabitants in the village. Most people favor the former theory, but consider it a pity that he has not distinctly pointed to the ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... smoking all the while, offered the chief a cigar. The cigar was refused, but the headman ordered a couple of natives ashore, and in five minutes we had wild bananas and fish to eat, and water to drink. But that five minutes of waiting were filled with awkward incidents. Blithelygo, meaning to be hospitable, had brought up a tumbler of claret for the headman. With violent language, MacGregor stopped its presentation; upon which the poison of suspicion evidently entered the mind of the savage, and he grasped his spear threateningly. Van Blaricom, who wore a long ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... was ajar, and they turned through, dragging their awkwardly shambling burden. As they gained the front porch the front door was flung wide, and Mrs. Adams stood there, peering out, to find what was the meaning of this scuffling and grunting. Charley was glad to see ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin

... of his Daphnaida is dated 'London this first of Januarie 1591,' that is 1592 according to our new style. Evidently there is some mistake here. Prof. Craik 'suspects' that in the latter instance 'the date January 1591' is used in the modern meaning; he quotes nothing to justify such a suspicion; but it would seem to be correct. Todd and others have proposed to alter the '1591' in the former instance to 1595, the year in which Colin Clouts Come Home Again was published, and with which the allusions made in the ...
— A Biography of Edmund Spenser • John W. Hales

... lovers at a time, but three, that is to say she had treated my rival as badly as she had treated me; the poor boy having discovered her inconstancy made a great ado and all Paris knew it. At first I did not catch the meaning of Desgenais' words as I was not listening attentively; but when he had repeated his story three times in detail I was so stupefied that I could not reply. My first impulse was to laugh, for I saw that I had loved the most unworthy of women; but it was no less true ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset

... meaning of this passage can be elucidated, it would appear as if the first circumnavigators of Britain, to enhance the idea of their dangers and hardships, had represented the Northern sea as in such a thickened half solid state, that the oars ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus

... hours in the valley, and for the Onondaga the air was full of the good spirits that watched over him. The dramatic and extraordinary change, occurring in a few minutes, made an ineffaceable impression upon a mind that saw meaning in everything. Here was the glen in which he had been held by Tandakora and his most deadly enemies, and there was the lone tree against which they had already heaped the fuel for burning him alive. Such a sudden and marvelous change could not have ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler

... water. But when this water-spouting instrument was erected, it was found here too that no water was to be had—no natural and gratuitous supply. And now when the stranger wonders at this tall disfigurement, and inquires into its meaning, he is told how the spirited efforts of the Brightonians to adorn their town have been rendered fruitless by the parsimony of water-companies. Once a week, however, his cicerone will advertise him—once every week and for two hours together—the fountain is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various

... folk-lore. We took turns reading aloud: every paragraph or so I would appeal for an explanation of something. Generally I understood well enough, but it was such a delight to hear Ingo strive to make the meaning plain. What a puckering of his bright boyish forehead, what a grave determination to elucidate the fable! What a mingling of ecstatic pride in having a grown man as pupil, with deference due to an elder. Ingo was a born gentleman and in his fiercest transports of glee ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley

... independence from the UK); this central image is circled by a border consisting of sheaves of wheat on the left and right, in the upper-center is an Arabic inscription of the Shahada (Muslim creed) below which are rays of the rising sun over the Takbir (Arabic expression meaning "God is great"), and at bottom center is a scroll bearing the ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... Chaldaeans, Gambulu, Egypt, Arabs, Sidon, Asia Minor, is not chronological but geographical. It has some striking variants in the proper names, for example, we have here Musur, universally recognized as meaning Egypt, where A has Musri, and thus we have exact proof that Musri does equal Egypt, the advocates of the Musri theory, if any still survive, to the contrary notwithstanding. [Footnote: Cf. Olmstead, Sargon, ...
— Assyrian Historiography • Albert Ten Eyck Olmstead

... most powerful poem is The Castaway. He always writes in clear, crisp, pleasant, and manly English. He himself says, in a letter to a friend: "Perspicuity is always more than half the battle... A meaning that does not stare you in the face is as bad as no meaning;" and this direction he himself always carried out. Cowper's poems mark a new era in poetry; his style is new, and his ideas are new. He is no follower of Pope; Southey compared Pope and Cowper as "formal gardens in comparison with ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn

... inaccessible refuge. Already I have a foretaste of that zero in which all forms and all modes are extinguished. I see how we return into the night, and inversely I understand how we issue from it. Life is but a meteor, of which the whole brief course is before me. Birth, life, death assume a fresh meaning to us at each phase of our existence. To see one's self as a firework in the darkness—to become a witness of one's own fugitive phenomenon—this is practical psychology. I prefer indeed the spectacle of the ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... the verse, because she had formerly noticed that it moved some chord in his memory connected with an old love affair in which his heart had been scathed; but she hesitated, for the meaning it conveyed ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various

... higher honour by her means. Yet the comfort was not of much worth in her loneliness, since she had given him to another, and none could take his place. Then she said prayers she knew, but they had no meaning, and she gazed from beneath her veil at the place where the Lord had lain; but she felt nothing, and her heart was as stone, believing what she saw, but finding no light of faith for her in the ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford

... although, to tell the truth, I never knew the reason for the name. Protracted meetings always stood for just the same thing ever since I was a boy, and we took it as meaning that one thing, ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr

... business accounts. An uninformed democracy is not a democracy. A people who cannot have means of access to the mediums of public opinion and to the messages of the President and the acts of Congress can hardly be expected to understand the full meaning of this war, to which they all must contribute in life or property or labor.—SECRETARY LANE, Annual Report, 1918, p. 30. ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn

... youth is always shocking, yet that is an essential part of war. But this was no war within the meaning accepted by civilisation—this crusade of light against darkness, of cleanliness against corruption, this battle of normal minds against the diseased, perverted, and filthy ferocity of a people not merely reverted to honest barbarism, but ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers

... interests, which was to keep along the same path and not be tempted out of it by passing people and worldly ambitions." And as he talked in his fine little cambric-needle voice that sounded as if it came out of a squeaky cabinet, I knew he was meaning more than he was saying, and I sat up and listened until ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher

... time he exclaimed, as the soldier commenced walking the other way; "We English gentlemen want to get board jhat;" persevered P——, endeavouring, by the adoption of a broken accent, to convey his meaning. ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross

... to wrack and ruin hurled! O warning of the night, prophetic dream! Thou didst foreshadow clearly all the doom, While ye, old men, made light of woman's fears! Ah well—yet, as your divination ruled The meaning of the sign, I hold it good, First, that I put up prayer unto the gods, And, after that, forth from my palace bring The sacrificial cake, the offering due To Earth and to the spirits of the dead. Too well I know it ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus

... do him no harm?" Lindsay retorted, with an interrogation in his tone that made the younger surgeon stare. What he might have said when he realized the full meaning of Lindsay's remark was not clear in his own mind. At that moment, however, one of the women employed in the office knocked at the door. She had a ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... supposed, by some learned men, to have been probably a sign or picture of the wondrous power of life and growth which there is in all earthly things—and that a sign of which I need not speak, or you hear. So that the meaning of this Song of the ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley

... knife in her hand. Slight parley did the athletic, impetuous Virginian ranger hold with the dragon who interposed between him and his lady-love. "Drop the knife! Throw up your hands!" he demanded, with an emphasis of desperation, which left no doubt of his intentions. Mex knew the meaning of pistols; she was cowed; the knife fell and her hands went up. Secretly she was glad to be foiled. She wished to be rid of the woman Palafox admired, and she could think of but two modes of disposing of her—killing her or letting her escape. ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... substantial help from her—still less that he would consent to marry her for the sake of the fortune which might save him. He grew very angry, then turned cold again, and then, reading the words again, saw that he had no right to attach any such meaning to them. Then it struck him that even if, by any possibility, she had meant to convey such an idea, he would have no right at all to resent it. Women, he reflected, did not look upon such matters as men did. She had refused to marry him when he was prosperous. ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford

... are slaves," thought I, "and this is West Indian bondage! Oh that some of my well—meaning anti—slavery friends were here, to judge from the ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... Tom, meaning thereby Eradicate Sampson, an aged but faithful colored servant. And then the voice of Rad, as he was most often called, ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton

... a psalm that she loved. The daughters sat on the bedside, holding her hands. So they waited, and she seemed to follow the meaning of the psalm as it went on, ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall

... nervous fingers he pressed the key that made and broke the circuit, thus sending out from the wire aerials between the masts the dots and dashes that, flying through the air, were received on other aerials and translated from meaningless clicks into words fraught with meaning. ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope

... mind with certain forms of statement which thoughtful men find it impossible to accept not only on intellectual but even on moral grounds. Certain dogmatic beliefs, for example, about the Fall, the scriptural basis of revelation, the blood-atonement, the meaning of salvation, the punishment of sin, heaven and hell, are not only misleading but unethical. What sensible man really believes in these notions as popularly assumed and presented, and what have they to do with Christianity? ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell

... peasants and workers; they dared not protest against us for denouncing the dishonest cunning, chicanery and cheating of the old diplomacy. We made it the task of our diplomacy to enlighten the masses of the peoples, to open their eyes to the real meaning of the policy of their governments, in order to weld them together in a common struggle and a common hatred against the bourgeois capitalist order. The German bourgeois press accused us of "dragging on" the peace negotiations; but all nations anxiously ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky

... withdrawn with his confessor into the embrasure of a window. The latter appearing reserved and mysterious, the curiosity of Philip V. was excited, and the King questioned his confessor as to the meaning of the unwonted mood in which he found him. Upon which Father Robinet replied, that since the King forced him to it, he would confess that nobody either in France or Spain doubted but that he would do Madame des Ursins the honour of espousing her. "I marry her!" ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... pointed across the hills and grinned. That grin went straight to my heart. Mechanically I held out my hand and Namgay Doola shook it. No pure Thibetan would have understood the meaning of the gesture. He went away to look for his clothes, and as he climbed back to his village, I heard a joyous yell that seemed unaccountably familiar. It was the whooping ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... the Algonkin name for them, meaning "adder." The French termed them "Mingos," from another Algonkin word meaning "stealthy." The English and Dutch colonists in America knew them as the Five Nations. Their own title was "People of the Long House," as if the five nations were ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin

... serious young men," said Blondet, "who meet at a philosophico-religious symposium in the Rue des Quatre-Vents, and worry themselves about the meaning ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... title to his professional brother who has no degree; and in a university town to say that John Smith is a doctor would be inconveniently ambiguous. 'Medical man' is cumbrous, and has the further disadvantage (in these days) of not being of common gender. Now the lack of any proper word for a meaning so constantly needing to be expressed is certainly a serious defect in modern (insular) English. The Americans have some right to crow over us here; but their 'physician' is a long word; and though it has been good English in the sense of medicus for six hundred ...
— Society for Pure English Tract 4 - The Pronunciation of English Words Derived from the Latin • John Sargeaunt

... into the French, M. Victor Hugo will please twig the proper meaning of the word "spray"; I shall be very angry if he make it appear that my ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... in a speech that was the soul of chivalry. Lord Runnybroke responded, perhaps without the American abandon, but with the steady conscientiousness of an hereditary legislator, but the M. P. summed up a slightly exaggerated but well meaning episode by pointing out that it was on occasions like this that the two nations showed their common ancestry by standing side by side. Only one thing troubled the rosy, excited, but still clear-headed ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte

... day. It clanged at midday from the steeple of St Giles, the Edinburgh cathedral; {ix} it was whistled by every dirty "gutter-snipe," and chanted in drawing-rooms by fair lips, that, little knowing the meaning of the words they sang, proclaimed to ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun

... you know that I am poor and live in an attic with a vulgar trollop who deceives me with hair-dressers and garcons de cafe; I translate wretched books for the British public, and write articles upon contemptible pictures which deserve not even to be abused. But pray tell me what is the meaning of life?" ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... I would feel like taking you at your word," and a look full of meaning flashed from his ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... yet from infant voices Words of wondrous meaning fall, And the Christian's heart rejoices, For he ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe

... sudden, turning on all sides, with a suspicion of every object, as if he had done or feared some extraordinary mischief. You see wickedness in his meaning, but folly of countenance, that betrays him to be unfit for the execution of it. He starts, stares, and looks round him. This constant shuffle of haste without speed, makes the man thought a little touched; but the vacant look of his two eyes gives you to ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... to shadow the mutual joy. In view of those three words it were simple impertinence to question whether we shall recognize our dear saints who have preceded us. Not only would such a question rob them of their beauty, but of their very meaning. They would be empty and absolutely meaningless in such case. Sure, beyond a peradventure, is it that our most cherished anticipations shall be far exceeded in that rapturous moment; for we can but reason from experience, whilst here the sweetest communion has ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings

... these sea- and wayfaring men nudged each other, not perhaps finding the meaning so clear as they did at the Tabernacle, but convinced, nevertheless, that "He means ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett

... face, together with the wearing of the immense hat, was a symbol of mourning. Such a sight was not uncommon in the streets of Seoul, and Yung Pak knew well its meaning. ...
— Our Little Korean Cousin • H. Lee M. Pike

... he had been given a new draft of Americanism; the word took on a new meaning for him; it stood for something different, something deeper and finer than before. And every subsequent talk with Roosevelt deepened the feeling and stirred Bok's deepest ambitions. "Go to it, you Dutchman," Roosevelt would say, and Bok would ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok

... definite knowledge of sex came in this way: I was attending Sabbath school and had become ambitious to read the Bible through. I had gotten as far as the account of the birth of Esau and Jacob, which aroused my curiosity. So I asked my mother the meaning of some word in the passage. She seemed embarrassed and evaded my question. This attitude stimulated my curiosity further, and I re-read the chapter until I understood it pretty well. Later I was further enlightened by girl playmates. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... said politely. My conception of the Professor's meaning was very faulty, but I found him engrossing because he talked so fluently and made so many expressive gestures. He, I suspect, was pleased with a sympathetic listener, ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... greeting was less hearty, but not less affectionate. She lingered just that second longer over each of them which gives an embrace a meaning beyond mere convention, but she only said, "I must go and see Miss Bird. I suppose she is in the schoolroom." She gathered up her skirts and went upstairs, but when the twins had given Cicely a boisterous hug, ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall

... arranging and retranscribing the materials I had collected for the work in the order of a Journal, I met with a little difficulty about the word FORRES, which the sense of the passage led me to read FORREST, meaning ETTRICK FORREST. Knowing that you were the best source from which true information on such subjects was to be drawn, and presuming upon your former kindness, I again addressed you, 23rd May 1816, begging to know whether I was ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... but she never let her eyes leave his. He fidgeted with his hat. He tried to avoid that clear gaze, but whatever the faint stirrings of his conscience might have prompted him to say the blundering but well meaning lawyer prevented. That indiscreet person stepped ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke

... predecessors in that office. Shaughnessy at the same age might have done it. Van Horne never. Yet Beatty never could have built the C.P.R. His brain has no wizardry in it. He is a co-ordination of facts that knows not the meaning of magic. He is the most matter-of-fact man in any high executive position in Canada. The task he undertook was all cut out for him. Fate decreed that he should take it. He never dreamed of refusing. And ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino

... a deep voice which he was uncommonly proud of; indeed it was understood among his acquaintance that if you could only give him his head, he would read the clergyman into fits; he himself confessed that if the Church was "thrown open," meaning to competition, he would not despair of making his mark in it. The Church not being "thrown open," he was, as I have said, our clerk. But he punished the Amens tremendously; and when he gave out the psalm,—always giving the whole verse,—he ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... lover, he cast on him a look of deep meaning, while Fernand, as he slowly paced behind the happy pair, who seemed, in their own unmixed content, to have entirely forgotten that such a being as himself existed, was pale and abstracted; occasionally, however, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... two dumb animals (meaning the cow and horse, he explained, though they weren't half as dumb as anyone who would go homesteading) while Ma stirred up some corn cakes and made coffee for them all. Milk the cow? What the hell did they think he was, a calf? Sourdough, like most cowboys, ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl

... a feast was in preparation. I supposed so only, for it would have been indecorous to enquire into the meaning of what I saw. No person, among the Indians themselves, would use this freedom. Good breeding requires that the spectator should ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... sometimes explained as that by which sentences and words could be interpreted as having one particular meaning and not another, and on the strength of this even Vedic accents of words (which indicate the meaning of compound words by pointing out the particular kind of compound in which the words entered into combination) were called Nyaya [Footnote ref 1]. Prof. Jacobi ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... context seems to demand this meaning, that is, "those who debase coin of the realm," rather than "beggars" ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... highland brogues, which he had purchased for the purpose, and had caused to be made so as to be tied with silver buckles: Depones, That on the above gold ring with the knob, there was upon the upper side of the knob some scores that the deponent did not understand the meaning of: Depones, That the Serjeant was wont frequently to take out his purse, either in paying or receiving money, or some time even in playing with children; and that when he went a-hunting or shooting, he always wore a laced hat, with a silver button: Depones, That the last time ...
— Trial of Duncan Terig, alias Clerk, and Alexander Bane Macdonald • Sir Walter Scott

... the dark, primeval woods had reared A race whose fierceness had its touch of ruth; Brave, cordial, chaste, and simple. Reverence That race preserved: Reverence advanced to Love: The ties of life it honoured: lit from heaven They wore a meaning new. The Faith of Christ Banished the bestial from the heart of man; Restored the Hope divine. In all his toils Oswald with Aidan walked. Impartial law, Not licence, not despotic favour, stands To Truth auxiliar true. Such laws were his: Yet not through such alone he worked for ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere

... poetry and imagination. The only difference between the Western and the Eastern mystic is that where one sees the world in the grain of sand and tells you all about it, the other sees and lets his silence imply that he knows its meaning. Or to quote Lao-tzu: "Those who speak do not know, those who know do not speak." It must always be understood that there is an implied continuation to every Japanese hokku. The concluding hemistich, whereby ...
— Japanese Prints • John Gould Fletcher

... reading in "Oriental Rug Weaving," by V. Kurdji, on the subject of inscriptions often found on Persian rugs. He says: "If the possessors of some of the rare pieces that are sold in this country knew the meaning of the inscriptions woven in their rugs, the knowledge would add a charm and interest which would make them more valuable than the ...
— Hand-Loom Weaving - A Manual for School and Home • Mattie Phipps Todd

... obstacles. Born at Wesselburen in the present province of Schleswig-Holstein on March 18, 1813, he was the son of a poor stone mason—so poor that, as Hebbel said, poverty had taken the place of his soul. Though Klaus Hebbel was a well-meaning man, he was a slave to the inexorable non possumus of penury. In winter, especially, lack of work made even the provision of daily bread often difficult and sometimes impossible for him. But Friedrich Hebbel's childhood, full of hardship as it was, was not cheerless. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... and null and void, because they demand witnesses and proofs to be received without a suit, debate, or conclusion preceding, a thing quite contrary to all order in law. He impugned the secret motive that could provoke the Portuguese judges to their interlocutory opinion, the apparent meaning of which was to make a summary investigation concerning the possession in order thereby to clear the way for the decision of ownership, thus making defendant and plaintiff change places. This had no place in the proceedings because they could not prepare ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair

... exhortations, and to bearing with each other's infirmities: And it is probable, the apostle may have had a regard to all these: But however, many learned men agree, that there is something more understood, and so the words in their plain natural meaning must import; as you will observe yourselves, if you read them with the beginning of the verse, which is thus: "Likewise ye younger submit yourselves unto the elder; yea, all of you be subject one to another." So, that upon the whole, there must be some kind of subjection due from every man ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift

... liturgical term, meaning the daily evening service in church; then in a more general way "evening." The Century Dict. gives no examples of its use as a nautical term. Probably Coleridge used it to give a suggestion of ante-Reformation times. The more familiar word for the evening service in the English Church is "even-song," ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... preceding chapter I have given an abstract of the life of Tom O' the Dingle; I will now give an analysis of his interlude; first, however, a few words on interludes in general. It is difficult to say with anything like certainty what is the meaning of the word interlude. It may mean, as Warton supposes in his history of English Poetry, a short play performed between the courses of a banquet or festival; or it may mean the playing of something by two or more parties, the ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... this boy kicked me." It being time for the children to leave school, the master waved his hand towards the gate through which the children pass, thoughtlessly saying, at the same time, "Kick away;" meaning that the complainant was to take no more notice of the affair, but go home. The complainant, however, returning to the other child, began kicking him, and received some kicks himself. A friend was present, and seeing two children kicking each other, he very naturally ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin



Words linked to "Meaning" :   undertone, semantics, idea, gist, symbolisation, point, reference, spirit, nicety, tenor, essence, overtone, refinement, purport, subject matter, symbolization, burden, connotation, nuance, intent, undercurrent, import, strain, subtlety, thought, implication, extension, effect, denotation, signified, shade, intension, message, sense, core, lesson, content, moral, referent, mean



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