"Plural" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is not found in Century Dictionary, is itself really plural of Arabic amir (ameer), ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... mind just mentionin'," said Maudie with growing irritation, "why you're makin' yourself so busy about my friends?" (Only strong resentment could have induced the plural.) ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... explained, wearily, "I do wish you wouldn't speak of your vital organs in the plural. Anyone would imagine you were a sort of freak, like the two-headed boy at ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Consider, my Lords, what he has said,—two hundred and fifty men at once, and in succession, aspiring to come home in the prime of their youth with lacs. You cannot take lacs to be less than two; we cannot make a plural less than two. Two lacs make 20,000l. Then multiply that, by 252, and you will find more than 2,500,000l. to be provided for that set of gentlemen, and for the claims of patronage. Undoubtedly such a patronage is worse than the most dreadful calamities of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... names of persons or families are invariable in the plural, e.g. les Corneille et les Racine, except certain well-known historical names, chiefly of dynasties, e.g. les Csars, les Tudors, les Bourbons. But when used as common nouns to denote 'persons like' or 'works by' those named, they are variable. In the latter ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... oppressors, or violent men, or, as we have rendered it, tyrants, corresponds too accurately with the character of Saul in his later years, to leave much doubt that it is pointed at him. If so, the softening of the harsh description by the use of the plural is in beautiful accordance with the forgiving leniency which runs through all David's conduct to him. Hard words about Saul himself do not occur in the psalms. His counsellors, his spies, the liars who calumniated David to him, ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... falls. 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.
... [More than one.] Plurality. — N. plurality; a number, a certain number; one or two, two or three &c.; a few, several; multitude &c. 102; majority. [large number] multitude &c. 102. Adj. plural, more than one, upwards of; some, several, a few; certain; not alone &c. 87. Adv. et cetera, &c., etc. among other things, inter alia[Lat]. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... belong, intermediary verifying bits of experience with which the mind at one end, and the reality at the other, are joined. The 'satisfaction,' in turn, is no abstract satisfaction ueberhaupt, felt by an unspecified being, but is assumed to consist of such satisfactions (in the plural) as concretely existing men actually do find in their beliefs. As we humans are constituted in point of fact, we find that to believe in other men's minds, in independent physical realities, in past events, in eternal logical relations, is satisfactory. ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... been mentioned in Theodora's prayer, from infancy. It was the plural number, but the strength and fervency of petition were reserved for one; and with him she now joined the name of his child. But how pray for the son without the mother? It was positively a struggle; for Theodora had a horror of mockery and formality; but the ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in England," a fresh instrument of criticism is exhibited. A local name like that of the present town of Kettering is in Anglo-Saxon Cytringas. Here the -as is the sign of the plural number, and the -ing- a sort of Anglo-Saxon patronymic, or, (if this expression be exceptional) a Gentile form. Hence, Cytr-ing-as means the Cytrings, and is the name of a community—i.e., it is a political or social ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... sovereign as a mysterious being, invested with absolute perfection, and a fabulous immortality, whose person was inviolable by its sacredness. A king of England is not subject to death, since the sovereign is a corporation, expressed by the awful plural the OUR and the WE. His majesty is always of full age, though in infancy; and so unlike mortality, the king can do no wrong. Such his ubiquity, that he acts at the same moment in different places; and such ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... terms in any way disappointed the gentleman from San Juan, my closest observation of his smile and glance failed to detect it. He merely quivered his shoulders—a sort of plural shrug—rolled his cigarette tighter between his thumb and forefinger, remarked that the memoranda were entirely satisfactory, and folding the paper slid it carefully into his pocket; then with a series of salaams that reminded me of a Mohammedan spreading a prayer rug, and an ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the persistent plural of the personal pronoun, and a great fear laid hold upon him. None the less, the president's invitation was a little like the king's—it was, in some sense, a command. Lidgerwood merely asked for a moment's respite, and went down to announce his intention to McCloskey and Dawson. ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... the singular. But this does not seem to yield good sense; for the whole extent of the kingdom of Meath could scarcely have been called a "parish" in the twelfth century. I therefore read "parishes." The singular may have been substituted for the plural at a later time, when the kingdom (or the greater part of it) included only the dioceses of Meath and Clonmacnoise, and their earlier history was forgotten. Cp. the unhistorical statement of St. Bernard about Down and Connor in Life, Sec. 31. D.A.I. have an anomalous ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor
... non-Brahmans, or, in the large cities, of Europeans and of Eurasians, besides still more specialised constituencies for the representation of land-holders, universities, commerce, and industries. There was no female suffrage, and no plural vote. No elector could vote both in a "general constituency" and in a "special" one. The qualifications laid down for the franchise were of a very modest character. Illiteracy was no bar, as to have ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... Bible was known—the name by which it was called for the first 1200 years in Church history. It was so named by the Latin Fathers in the fifth century, and it means, of course, "The Writings". These "Scriptures," or "Writings," were not, as the plural form of the word reminds us, one book, but many books, afterwards gathered into one book.[4] They were a library of separate books, called by St. Irenaeus "The Divine Library"—perhaps {27} the best and most descriptive name the Bible ever had. ...
— The Church: Her Books and Her Sacraments • E. E. Holmes
... discrimination of the intercession. He 'hath desired to have you'—that is plural; 'I have prayed for thee'—that is singular. The man that was in the greatest danger was the man nearest to Christ's heart, and chiefly the object of Christ's intercession. So it is always—the tenderest of His words, the sweetest ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... 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 ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... as a demonstrative pronoun, both in the singular and plural, for this and these, it maybe observed, as well as of the pronunciation of many other words in the west, that we have no letters or combination of letters which, express exactly the sounds there ...
— The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire • James Jennings
... CHERUBIM, the Hebrew plural of "cherub" (kerub), imaginary winged animal figures of a sacred character, referred to in the description of Solomon's temple (1 Kings vi. 23-35, vii. 29, viii. 6, 7), and also in that of the ark ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... 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 use of the term dud ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... for your friends." The eyes of the two men met; those of Lord Ronsdale were full of sardonic meaning. "Friends who had trusted you; who," softly, "had admitted you to their firesides, not knowing—" he broke off. "They," he still adhered to the plural, "would have been deeply shocked, pained; would still ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... additional sum of L100 is mentioned in one of the letters to Atticus, lib. v., 5., which is, however, spoken of by Cicero as forming one whole with the other. I can hardly think that Mommsen had this in view when he spoke of loans in the plural number. ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... in a round number, and it 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. For a hectic month ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... confirmation, but, alas! the writers did not give me permission to publish their names. I have on my desk before me as I write this page a letter from the editor of our most artistic illustrated weekly: "Allow me to congratulate you; keep pegging away. The Royal Academy of Arts (plural) is nonsense; it is, as you say, a Royal Academy of oil. If the R.A. had done their duty years ago, we would not see such farcical statues in the streets, nor should I (as at present moment employed) ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... tumors is quite simple. The Greek word "oma" (plural "omata") means tumor. This word "oma" is added to the stem of the word ordinarily used to designate the kind of tissue of which the tumor is composed. Thus a tumor formed after the type of fibrous tissue is a fibroma. The ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... 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? ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... but it was not his good-natured appetite that wrought confusion. If he had loved us for our dinners we could have paid with our dinners, and it would have been a great economy of finer matter. I make free in these connexions with the plural possessive because if I was never able to do what the Mulvilles did, and people with still bigger houses and simpler charities, I met, first and last, every demand of reflexion, of emotion—particularly perhaps those of gratitude ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... 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 ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... Trinity. This word is not found in Scripture, but the truth which it expresses is set forth there, dimly in the Old Testament, distinctly in the New. In the first chapter of Genesis the word "God" is in the Hebrew a plural noun, and yet it is used with a singular verb, thus early seeming to intimate what afterwards is clearly made known, that there is a plurality of Persons, who yet constitute the one living and true God. The same indication of plurality in unity appears in the account of man's creation: "Let ...
— Exposition of the Apostles Creed • James Dodds
... to levy duties on foreign importations; to impose stamp and postage taxes; to collect, without hinderance, requisitions not promptly met by the states; and to regulate commerce with foreign nations. It proposed a plural federal executive and a federal judiciary, and made acts of Congress and ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... noted before we start our investigation of Luther's writings: 1. Is it not remarkable that Joseph Smith himself does not cite Luther as his authority in defense of plural marriages? What an impression would the man have made, had he known what Mr. Roberts and some Catholics know! 2. Charging Lutheranism, that is, the Lutheran Church, with teaching polygamy, implies that the confessional writings of the Lutheran Church contain this teaching. The ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... subject of a sentence must be put in the nominative case? Let it kick and bite, and hang on to the desks all it wants to, in it goes and the door is slammed on it. You think so? What is the word "you?" Second person, plural number, objective case. Oh, no; the nominative ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... present at them all. This he afterwards explained by saying that to a Boyar the pride of his house and name is his own pride, that their glory is his glory, that their fate is his fate. Whenever he spoke of his house he always said "we", and spoke almost in the plural, like a king speaking. I wish I could put down all he said exactly as he said it, for to me it was most fascinating. It seemed to have in it a whole history of the country. He grew excited as he spoke, and walked about the room pulling his great white moustache and ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... Goldencalf 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 ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... and plural! while we have tiding as the singular of tidings, a form which, from long disuse, would now appear strange to us. In the following extract from Florio's very amusing book of Dialogues, Second Frutes, 1591, he makes newes decidedly plural:— ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 42, Saturday, August 17, 1850 • Various
... 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 attention to that higher importance which, everywhere ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... certainly going 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 ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... adjective aionos (aionios) (Eng. aeonian), coming from the noun aion (aion) (Eng. aeon), an age, an epoch, a long period of time. This noun cannot mean eternity for it is repeatedly used by St. Paul in the plural "aeons" and "aeons of aeons." As we speak of great periods of time, "the Ice Age," "the Stone Age," etc., so the Bible speaks of "this age" (aeon), "the coming age" (aeon), and "the end of the age," etc. These aeons or ages are thought of in Scripture as vast periods past, present and ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth
... Jahveh. Cruel god of a horde of nomadic invaders settling in a land of farmers, he had his images, ranging in elaboration from an uncut mazzebah or asherah, to a golden bull. He was plural by place and tribe and function. What did the prophetic movement do with his sacred powers? It identified his taboos ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... service, he was admitted to a partnership with two 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, and here became acquainted ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... insist 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 are warmer and less damp than the outer air—which is more than can be said ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... Initiates of different ages and countries. Amongst these ideas is said to have been the conception of the unity of God. Whilst to the multitude it was deemed advisable to preach polytheism, since only in this manner could the plural aspects of the Divine be apprehended by the multitude, the Initiates themselves believed in the existence of one Supreme Being, the Creator of the Universe, pervading and governing all things, Le Plongeon, whose object is to show an affinity ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... final n, especially in the plural of nouns and in verbs, do not count. Therefore, penas and arenas would ...
— Legends, Tales and Poems • Gustavo Adolfo Becquer
... intelligible and even gastronomically correct were it not for this word "fish." However, we cannot accept Lister's reading lacertis. We prefer the reading, laridis, bacon. The French have another term for this—petits sales. Both this and the Torinus term are in the plural. They are simply small strips of bacon to which Torinus again refers in the above formula, salsum, coctum in media pones—put the bacon, when done, in the center (of the dish). Regarding salsum also see note to {Rx} ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... ten-syllabic blank-verse ode, In second persons singular of verbs, In "snifflest" and in "wheezest" and the rest, For I am sure to trip and spoil the thing, And bring grammatic censure on my head. Be, therefore, plural—"you" instead of "thou"— Which makes things simpler. Now we can get on. O fain-avoided and most loathsome Cold, You with the sneezing, teasing, wheezing airs, What make you here at such a time as this, Melting ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 15, 1916 • Various
... other in the West, but there was but one empire. The two emperors, though they may have resided, one in Constantinople and the other in Italy, were considered as being but one person. In addressing one of them the word "you" (in the plural) was used, as if both were addressed at the same time. This was the first use of the pronoun of the second person in the plural for such a purpose; for throughout antiquity even kings and emperors were addressed in ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... 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 ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... the dose of respect (though some people, in some cases, find it hard) when considering a further quality or property—the Riddle-attraction of Rabelais. This riddle-attraction—or attractions, for it might be better spoken of in a very large plural—is of course quite undeniable in itself. There are as many second intentions in the ordinary sense, apparently obvious in Gargantua and Pantagruel, as there can have been in the scholastic among the ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... food supplies running 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 quailing before the ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... what I wanted to talk to you about," said Adrian. "I made some reply to our dear boy which he has slightly misinterpreted. Our second person plural is liable to misconstruction by an ardent mind. I said 'see you,' and he supposed—now, Mrs. Richard, I am sure you will understand me. Just at present perhaps it would be advisable—when the father and son ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... 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
... cit. p. 121) disposes of the idea that the Cold mart was the mart at Cortemarck, while another document refers to merchants intending to ship 'to the cold martes' and 'to the synxon martes' in the plural. Ibid., p. 123. The identification of Balms mart with the fair at St Remy on August 8 is, moreover, belied by the same document (1510-11), which runs, 'Whereas this present marte ... we have lycensed and set you at libertie to shipp your ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... receive perhaps an excessive attention in some of our text-books. To use the right word in the right place is an accomplishment not less valuable than the knowledge of the truth (carefully recorded in most English Grammars, and often inflicted as a task upon younger pupils) that the plural of cherub is cherubim, and the feminine ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... "The plural of the word is pandanaceae; and they are the same thing as the screw-pines, and sometimes are found thirty feet high. There is one; and you can see roots starting out of the stem, and heading downward. The leaves are very useful to the ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... events of the year before, which in some distorted way had reached the servants' ears. "We always thought as 'ow it was them niggers as done it," he declared; and when I questioned him on his use of the plural, admitted that at the time in question "there 'ad been more nor one ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... GRAMMATICAL TREE.—A Yew Tree. First it may be a 'Igh Tree, but it is a Yew Tree. It is either a He Tree or a She Tree. If small, it represents the first person plural by being a "Wee Tree:" the second person plural is the Manager and Manageress of the Haymarket, "Ye Trees;" and the third person plural would be expressed by a Devonshire Gardener indicating this talented couple ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 3, 1892 • Various
... 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.' ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... close to the professional quality, and its few faults are far less considerable than might be expected from the pen of a young author. However, we must remark some rather awkward examples of grammatical construction. The correct plural of "eucalyptus" is "eucalypti", without any final "s", the name being treated as a Latin noun of the second declension. "Slowly and dignified—it pursues its way" is hardly a permissible clause; the adjective "dignified" must be exchanged for an ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... and with the Individual or Single Person (or Thing) in the Universe at large. The Number Two corresponds with the Dual Number in Grammar, and with the Couple or Pair in the World of Persons (and Things); and finally the Number Three corresponds with the Plural Number in Grammar and with Society or the many among Persons (and Things); or in tabular ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... had been systematically evaded. In 1882 Congress made another and more effective effort to stamp out polygamy. Five years later it even went so far as to authorize the confiscation of the property of the Mormon Church in case the practice of plural marriages was not stopped. Meanwhile the Gentile or non-Mormon population was steadily increasing and the leaders in the Church became convinced that the battle against the sentiment of the country was futile. At last in 1896 Utah was admitted ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... The plural was pure chivalry. It was not Amzi who nagged Phil. The aunts, perfectly aware of this, and ready usually to challenge any intimation that their attitude toward Phil was not dictated by equity and wisdom, were silent. Their failure to respond with their ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... Chapter XI: "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. ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... created lords for the satisfaction of philosophers. This acts as a set-off, and gets heaven out of the scrape, affording it a decent escape from a false position. The great are great. A peer, speaking of himself, says we. A peer is a plural. The king qualifies the peer consanguinei nostri. The peers have made a multitude of wise laws; amongst others, one which condemns to death any one who cuts down a three-year-old poplar tree. Their supremacy is such that they have a language of their own. In heraldic style, black, which is ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... one from more than one. There are two numbers, singular and plural; the singular denotes one, the plural two or more. The plural is generally formed from the singular by the addition of ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... the letter from Mr. Black, we had little difficulty in planning the most charming improvements. I make use of the plural personal pronoun, although if I were testifying upon oath I should feel compelled to admit that I myself had precious little to do with the planning. It grieved me considerably to observe that while the neighbors generally, and Mrs. Denslow particularly, were diligently ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... a Greek word, the plural of 'antipous, lit. "having feet opposed." The ancients, however, had no knowledge of the southern hemisphere. Under the word perioikos, Liddell and Scott explain that 'antipodes meant "those who were in opposite parallels and meridians." The word Antipodes was adopted into the Latin language, ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... practicable, he disgusts scholars and 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 ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... principle and calculated to ward off its inconveniences: one of the chief of these remedies being Proportional Representation, on which scarcely any of the Conservatives gave me any support. Some Tory expectations appear to have been founded on the approbation I had expressed of plural voting, under certain conditions: and it has been surmised that the suggestion of this sort made in one of the resolutions which Mr. Disraeli introduced into the House preparatory to his Reform Bill (a suggestion ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... to make thee less happy than thou hast been with those others," said he softly in Italian, and using the form of address, which, in almost every language but the English, marks a different and more tender relation from that indicated by the more formal plural pronoun. ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... ileoumai for ilaskomai, and the Ionic word sophronistus, 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, dieulabeisthai, and ...
— Laws • Plato
... mad idea to travel hundreds of miles to see a few old remains of a doubtful edifice, built by Bantus! or is the plural Bantams?... I'm sure when you heard we were coming you wondered if you had better prepare a dwelling for us with padded walls. Now, didn't you?..." and she looked up ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... 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 ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... Anglo-Saxon, 450-1100.— This form of 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
... allowed the two to pass on. Waring had gazed within, meanwhile, and discovered the plural wives, more or less good-looking, generally less; they did not seem unhappy, however, not so much as many a single one he had met in more luxurious homes, and he said to himself, 'Women of the lower class are much better and happier when well curbed.' It did not occur ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... soil of Rythar there were one hundred women and thirty men. All the boys had taken mates before they reached seventeen. Seventy girls were left unmarried, with no prospect of ever having husbands. A score or more became second wives in polygamous homes, but plural marriage had no appeal for Mryna. She was firmly determined to possess a man of her own. And why shouldn't it be ...
— The Guardians • Irving Cox
... soldiers. They do not, as their 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
... to the house of the daughter of a leading statesman of the Manchus, she being a lady of small feet and ten children, who has offered a prize for the best essay on the ways to stop concubinage, which they call the whole system of plural marriage. They say it is quite unchanged among the rich. There we were given a tea of a rare sort, unknown in our experience. Two kinds of meat pies which are made in the form of little cakes and ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey
... of number: not only is the style improved by the use of those words which, though singular in form, are found on inspection to be plural in meaning, as ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... 96: Chap. IV. nomenclature.] All parts of speech appear to be subject to inflections, if we except adverbs, post-fixes, and post-positions. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns and verbs have all three numbers, singular, dual and plural. The nominative agent always precedes an active verb. When any new object is presented to the native, a name is given to it, from some fancied similarity to some object they already know, or from some peculiar quality or attribute it may possess; thus, rice is in the Moorunde dialect called ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... being about to build). 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various
... wit in writing and speaking; of a "jeering temper," and of a most grasping avarice. He was ridiculed on the stage in Middleton's play, The Game of Chess, as the "Fat Bishop." "He was well named De Dominis in the plural," says Crakanthorp, "for he could serve two masters, or twenty, if they ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... brings me another of those tapeworm telegraphs, I'll throw an axe-handle at him." His pessimism extended up, or down, to generally recognized canons of orthography. They were all iniquitous. If k-n-i-f-e spelled knife, then, he contended, k-n-i-f-e-s was the plural. Diverting tags, written by his own hand in conformity with this theory, were always attached to articles in his shop window. He is long since ded, as he himself would have put it, but his phonetic theory appears to have survived him in crankish brains here and there. As my ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... this fact is still more noticeable in the original, for St. Paul in this verse breaks one of the familiar rules of grammar, whether of Greek or English. It is well known that whenever there are two nouns to a verb the verb must be in the plural; and yet here the Greek word "direct" is in the singular, notwithstanding the fact that there are two subjects, the Father and Christ. The same feature is to be found in 2 Thess. ii. 17. It is evident from this what St. ...
— The Prayers of St. Paul • W. H. Griffith Thomas
... 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
... declension of Celtic nouns.—In Irish there is a peculiar form for the dative plural, as cos foot, cos-aibh to feet (ped-ibus); and beyond this there is nothing else whatever in the way of case, as found in the German, Latin, Greek, and other tongues. Even the isolated form in question is not found in the Welsh and Breton. Hence the ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... itself I! (Fools! a truce with this starting!) All my I! all my I! He's a heretic dog who but adds Betty Martin! Thus cried the God with high imperial tone; In robe of stiffest state, that scoffed at beauty, A pronoun-verb imperative he shone— Then substantive and plural-singular grown He thus spake on! Behold in I alone (For ethics boast a syntax of their own) Or if in ye, yet as I doth depute ye, In O! I, you, the vocative of duty! I of the world's whole Lexicon the root! Of the whole universe of touch, sound, sight The genitive and ablative to boot: The accusative ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... furl the sail. Peterson, as if he had waited for 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 they all ...
— 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
... worship "of 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 ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... disappointment very seriously, if quietly. Had he only known other girls, he might have made a safe recovery, for love's remedy is truly the homeopathic "similia similibus curantur," woman plural being the natural cure for woman singular. As the Russian in the "Last Word" says, "A woman can do anything with a man—provided there is no other woman." In Peter's case there was no other woman. ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... being kept. This is indicated in the twentieth chapter of Revelation, where it is said, "And the books were opened." Notice that it is plural and not singular. There is a record in heaven kept by the Recording Angel. If it were in the memory of God it would be an awful thing, for while God does not remember forgiven sin, he cannot, from the very nature of the case, ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... the prayer has been heard which He made for Peter, and for those who should, in turn, exercise Peter's office and functions, and should speak in his name. Harken to the narrative, as given by St. Luke: "The Lord said: Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you [observe, the plural number] that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed [not for all, but] for thee, that thy faith fail not: and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren" (Luke xxii. 32) [observe the singular number, "thee," "thy" ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... could scarcely avoid turning round to cast one affectionate look towards Christendom, but quickly again he marched on with steps of a man, not frightened exactly, but sternly prepared for death, or the Koran, or even for plural wives. ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... would be "newes," thus spelt and probably pronounced the same as in England. That the word is not derived from the English adjective "new"—that it is not of English manufacture at all—I feel well assured: in that case the "s" would be the sign of the plural: and we should have, as the Germans have, either extant or obsolete, also "the new." The English language, however, has never dealt in these abstractions, except in its higher poetry; though some recent translators from the German have disregarded the difference in this respect ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 27. Saturday, May 4, 1850 • Various
... refrain from laughter, when I answered all thy civilities without uncovering my head, and at the same time said 'thee' and 'thou' to thee. However, thou appearest to me too well read not to know that in Christ's time no nation was so ridiculous as to put the plural number for the singular. Augustus Caesar himself was spoken to in such phrases as these: 'I love thee,' 'I beseech thee,' 'I thank thee;' but he did not allow any person to call him 'Domine,' sir. It was not till many ages after that men would ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... fell. The excitements of the past six hours had demoralised me altogether. I could not remember who or what gradus was—whether it was an active noun or a feminine verb or a plural conjunction, or what. In vain the faithful Dicky prompted me from behind and Graham minor from the side. As they both prompted at the same time, and each suggested different things, I only floundered ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... etc., etc., p. 50): "The chiefs of the second class are yet called calpullec in the singular and chinancallec in the plural." (This is evidently incorrect, since the words 'calpulli' and 'chinancalli' can easily be distinguished from each other.) "'Chinancalli', however after Molina means 'cercado de seto' (Parte IIa, p. 21), or an inclosed area, and if we connect it ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... London are the one sheriff of Middlesex; thus constituting in the latter case, what may be denominated, in the words of George Colman the Younger, (see his address to the Reviewers, in his vagaries,) 'a plural unit.' Henry the First, in the same charter by which he declared and confirmed the privileges of the City of London, (and among others, that of choosing their own sheriffs,) conferred on them, in consideration of an annual rent of 300l., to be paid to his majesty ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832. • Various
... 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 ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... how my companion took his coffee, but it seemed to me that tardy politeness now demanded that I tacitly—or at least demi-tacitly—accede to the alleged plural intent of the question. Therefore, I replied: "Mr. Morgan takes two lumps. I ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... 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 ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... be the result of direct inspiration. The divine agent, suggesting judicial awards to kings or to gods, the greatest of kings, was Themis. The peculiarity of the conception is brought out by the use of the plural. Themistes, Themises, the plural of Themis, are the awards themselves, divinely dictated to the judge. Kings are spoken of as if they had a store of "Themistes" ready to hand for use; but it must be distinctly understood ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... second person being used. (3) In Isaiah xxxvi:5, we read "I say (but they are but vain words) I have counsel and strength for war," and in the twenty-second verse of the chapter in Kings it is written, "But if ye say," the plural number being used, whereas Isaiah gives the singular. (4) The text in Isaiah does not contain the words found in 2 Kings xxxii:32. (5) Thus there are several cases of various readings where it is impossible ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part II] • Benedict de Spinoza
... discourse, and you in common language. Ye (plural) is also used in serious addresses, and you ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... 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, ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... give an account, of the Grammar of this Tongue; I shall only give a few instances of their words, and leave it to the Learned to make their Conjectures. First, I will give you some of their Nouns Plural. ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... succumbed at the reflection of what HE might do if he were in the other rascal's place. "See here, Wiles," he said, relaxing his dignity with the perspiration that oozed from every pore, and made the collar of his shirt a mere limp rag. "See here, WE"—this first use of the plural was equivalent to a ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... it kindly," laughed Phillips. "He is offering me an excuse to surrender gracefully. We must have a public meeting or two after Christmas, and clear the ground." They had got into the habit of speaking in the plural. ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... as the double monsters. Hippocrates, in his work on the "Nature of the Infant," tells us that twins are the result of a single coitus, and we are also informed that each infant has a chorion; so that both kinds of plural gestation (monochorionic and dichorionic) were known to the ancients. In this treatise it is further stated that the twins may be male or female, or both males or both females; the male is formed when the semen is ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... which is to express itself. In the domestic birds described above, the male type of body appears in the absence of the ovarian secretion, and the female type in its presence. In man and the more highly organized mammals, we must use "secretions" in the plural, since a number of them, from different glands, act together in a "complex." Goodale, experimenting with birds, was unable to definitely decide whether the basis for sex was single or double in that material, though he ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... Arnall held it up by a corner and said it was an insult to any master to send him up such a theme. Then he asked Jack Lawton to decline the noun MARE and Jack Lawton stopped at the ablative singular and could not go on with the plural. ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... Mixteca, plural of Mixtecatl, an inhabitant of Mixtecapan, near the Pacific. The Huasteca, a nation of Maya lineage, lived on the ...
— Rig Veda Americanus - Sacred Songs Of The Ancient Mexicans, With A Gloss In Nahuatl • Various
... the latter, in his two noisiest controversies, which he carried on for weeks and months in the columns of the newspapers about whether it was proper to wear a high hat, a derby, or a salakot, and whether the plural of caracter should be caracteres or caracteres, in order to strengthen his argument always came out with, "We have this on good authority," "We learn this from good authority," later letting it be known, for in Manila everything becomes known, that this Good Authority ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... the text "khanadik," ditches, trenches; probably (as Mr. Payne suggests) a clerical or typographical error for "Fanadik," inns or caravanserais; the plural of "Funduk" (Span. Fonda), for which see vol. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... 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 number in ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... 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 married ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... of a country 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
... greeting, and is used in addressing officials, or any strange male person. "Sirs," or "Gentlemen" may be used in the plural. "Dear Sir," or "My Dear Sir," is the usual form of greeting when a business letter is addressed ...
— Business Hints for Men and Women • Alfred Rochefort Calhoun
... degree; and we shall accordingly find that it is chiefly in words of these and similar classes that the greatest degree of resemblance is found to exist. With regard to the pronouns this is very remarkable. In the singular, plural, and dual numbers they almost coincide in Western Australia, South Australia, and Sydney. The following table of the pronouns as used in those places will ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... be consider'd is, Virgil's mixing the Singular and Plural Numbers. This has a wonderful Effect, and is very diligently attended to by Virgil; but I believe never once thought of by Ovid, or any other Roman Writer ...
— Letters Concerning Poetical Translations - And Virgil's and Milton's Arts of Verse, &c. • William Benson
... o oe, thou; o oia, she, he, it. In these pronouns the Tahaitian, and those languages to which it bears affinity, are particularly rich. They have not only the dual of the Orientals, but two first persons in the singular as well as plural: for example— ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... would it be strange and inconsistent for changes to occur. But if, as is the fact, the standard is experimental and representative of actual artistic purposes, then change is normal. Moreover, the standard is not single and absolute, but plural and relative. Growth in taste means not only development along a given line, within a given form, but enlargement through the origination of new forms and beauties. It is not like the straight line growth of an animal, but rather radial, like the growth ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... Federation early in November he announced his intention of introducing during the coming session of 1912 the Electoral Reform Bill which he had foreshadowed in 1908; he said that in this Bill all existing franchises would be swept away, plural voting abolished and the period of residence reduced. The new franchise to be created was, he added, to be based on citizenship and votes were to be given to "citizens of full age and competent understanding," but no mention was made of the enfranchisement ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... into a fortress,) which was affixed many centuries ago on the side of the tower next the Appian Way, and still remains there; and, accordingly, the vulgar name is Capo di Bove, 'the head of the ox,' in the singular—not in the plural." ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... of color. Basid'ium (plural basidia). Mother cells in the hymenium. Behind. Posterior, the end of a gill next to the stem is said to be the posterior end. Bifur'cate. Two-forked. Bulbous. Spoken of the stem when it has a bulb-like ...
— Among the Mushrooms - A Guide For Beginners • Ellen M. Dallas and Caroline A. Burgin
... notice that you used the plural pronoun when you spoke. Then you do not go on this ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... course of this argument I have seen that if news were originally a plural noun, it might be taken for an ellipsis of new-tidings. My objection to this would be twofold. First, that the adjective new is of too common use, and, at the same time, too general and vague to form an ellipsis ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 44, Saturday, August 31, 1850 • Various
... 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 unimportance of his contribution ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... Khosrau (Cyrus) is the title of several ancient kings of Persia, and is here used in the plural to denote monarchs in general. The term "kiblah," fronting-point, signifies the object towards which the worshipper turns ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... organ in the church, or rather, to use the old phrase, a "pair of organs," for the instrument had a plural name like "a pair of bellows." Organs were in use in the church at any rate in the fourth century, and were introduced into England by Archbishop Theodore. In old times there was no official organist; the duty was taken by the master of the choristers or one of the gentlemen ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... of a theme, or as a label for humor or irony 97. The Apostrophe: a In contractions; b To form the possessive; c To form the possessive of nouns ending in s; d Not used with personal possessive pronouns; e To form the plural of certain signs and letters 98. The Question Mark: a After a direct question; b Not followed by a comma within a sentence; c In parentheses to express uncertainty; d Not used to label irony; e The Exclamation Point 99. ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... get up," thought Mrs. Wriothesley, as she drove home from Hurlingham. "Yes, Sylla, my dear, you have told me something to-day that I honestly don't believe you knew yourself before. When accidents happen in the plural, and young ladies remark upon them only in the singular number, it is a sign of absorbing interest in somebody concerned. People generally, I think, would have observed, 'They don't get up.'" But Mrs. Wriothesley wisely kept all ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... articles in Khasi; three in the singular, u, (masculine), ka (feminine), and i (diminutive of both genders); and one in the plural for ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... 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 earlier ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... part of a fence so fitted that it can be removed so as to serve as a gate. Used also for the gateway thus formed. Generally in the plural. Same as ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... 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 division ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... his return to Florence he became Secretary of the Commune, and he was the master of Dante and Guido Cavalcanti. His principal literary work was Li Livres dou Tresor, written in French, an interesting compend of the omne scibile. He died in 1290. Dante uses the plural "you" in addressing him, as a ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... followed by Bentley; Mr. Johnson, the Hampshire and Winchester Editions give 'reflections.' But in Jane Austen's novels the expression 'a series of' is continually followed by a noun in the singular, when nowadays we should probably use the plural—e.g. Emma, chapter xxxvi, 'a series of dissipation'; Sense and Sensibility, chapter xxvii, 'a series of rain'; chapter xlvi, ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... also au gratin when topped with both cheese and browned bread crumbs. By a sort of poetic cook's license the name is also applied to any kind of cake containing cheese and cooked in the identifying one-portion ramekin. It is used chiefly in the plural, however, together with the name of the chief ingredient, such ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... protector of the just. The great god of the Assyrians was, of course, the god of battles, the director of armies, and in that capacity, the spouse of Istar, who was no less warlike than himself. His name was often used, in the plural, to signify the gods in general, as that of Istar was used for the goddesses. No myth has come down to us in which he plays the principal part, a fact which is to be accounted for by his comparatively late arrival at a position of ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... expressive of relations, being completely unknown to them. Other peculiarities characteristic of the Altaic languages are the vocal harmony occurring in many of them, the inability to have more than one consonant in the beginning of a word, and the expression of the plural by a peculiar affix, the case terminations being the same in the plural as in the singular. The affinity between the different branches of the Altaic stem is thus founded mainly on analogy or resemblance in the construction of the languages, while the different ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... i, 2. The word Vanity (remarks Hurwitz, the translator) occurs twice in the plural, which the Rabbi considered as equivalent to four, and three times in the singular, ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... readers the plural form, "Electricities," which frequently appears in the following pages, might seem a strange innovation. The Editor therefore states, by way of anticipation, that in certain important points the electrical science of Montalluyah differs from, if ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... 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 18 are of French, and 24 of A.S. origin. The three following French ...
— Caxton's Book of Curtesye • Frederick J. Furnivall
... the Washington Trust Company than in probing the heart of the lonely little girl. He gave the elegant Miss Thompson to understand clearly that Miss Adelle Clark was to have every advantage that money could buy, not merely music and art as extras, but horses,—he even put it in the plural,—a groom, and if she wanted it a private maid, which he was told was never permitted. Miss Thompson quickly gathered from his tone and his words that Miss Adelle Clark's expectations were such as to insure her the most careful consideration in every respect, and if Herndon ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... to be a corruption of the French word Francais. It is, however, really derived from the foregoing word, PASISI, with the terminal UKS, which is a plural form applied to living beings. Lewis and Clarke (vol. ii., p. 413) give Pashisheooks, clothmen, as the Chinook name for the whites, and this explanation was also furnished me by people of that tribe. It has since been generally restricted ...
— Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, or, Trade Language of Oregon • George Gibbs
... which he has left us is manifestly intended primarily, not for secret worship, but for social worship. The pronouns of the "Lord's Prayer" are all in the plural number: "Our father who art in heaven;" "Give us this day our daily bread." For solitary prayer these ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... Maxwell 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
... satisfied with the common explanation of the name, and have stated that it was originally composed with the word tan['e] (seed, or grain), and the word hata (loom). Those who accept this etymology make the appellation, Tanabata-Sama, plural instead of singular, and render it as "the deities of grain and of the loom,"—that is to say, those presiding over agriculture and weaving. In old Japanese pictures the star-gods are represented according to this conception of their respective attributes;—Hikoboshi being ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... affords a confused mass of references. As regards the least definite of these, one finds phrases so vague as to suggest that the author himself might have had difficulty in identifying his source, phrases where the omission of the article ("in rhyme," "in romance," "in story") or the use of the plural ("as books say," "as clerks tell," "as men us told," "in stories thus as we read") deprives the words of most of their significance. Other references are more definite; the writer mentions "this book," "mine author," "the Latin book," "the French book." If these ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... he adopted, was in the use of the pronoun thou. The pronoun you, which grammarians had fixed to be of the plural number, was then occasionally used, but less than it is now, in addressing an individual. George Fox therefore adopted thou in its place on this occasion, leaving the word you to be used only where two or more individuals ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... the comparative grammar of Sanscrit and Zend. "When I perused the Zend glossary," he writes, "I was inexpressibly surprised to find that six or seven words in ten are pure Sanscrit, and even some of their inflexions formed by the rules of the Vyacaran, as yushmacam, the genitive plural of yushmad. Now M. Anquetil most certainly, and the Persian compiler most probably, had no knowledge of Sanscrit, and could not, therefore, have invented a list of Sanscrit words; it is, therefore, an authentic list of Zend words, which has been preserved in books ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... is represented that since the date of said declaration the members and adherents of said church have generally obeyed said laws and have abstained from plural ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... 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
... saint, Meshe," said Malka, so impressed that she admitted him to the equality of the second person plural. "If everybody knew as much Terah as you, the Messiah would soon be here. Here are five shillings. For five shillings you can get a basket of lemons in the Orange Market in Duke's Place, and if you ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill |
