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Significant   Listen
adjective
Significant  adj.  
1.
Fitted or designed to signify or make known somethingl having a meaning; standing as a sign or token; expressive or suggestive; as, a significant word or sound; a significant look. "It was well said of Plotinus, that the stars were significant, but not efficient."
2.
Deserving to be considered; important; momentous; as, a significant event.
Significant figures (Arith.), the figures which remain to any number, or decimal fraction, after the ciphers at the right or left are canceled. Thus, the significant figures of 25,000, or of.0025, are 25.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Significant" Quotes from Famous Books



... Dislodged from their homes, the Edomites took advantage of the weakness of the Jews and seized southern Judah, including the ancient capital Hebron. The doom which Ezekiel pronounces upon the Edomites in 25[12] is because of the revenge that they wreaked upon the Jews at this time. It is significant that Ezekiel's sermons in the period immediately following the fall of Jerusalem contain dire predictions of divine vengeance upon all these foes. After the overthrow of Gedaliah's kingdom, the Jews who remained in Palestine appear to have been left wholly without defences ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent

... replied the gate-keeper defiantly, "and in behalf of the holy fathers (here he cast a significant glance at the priests), ask the high-priest Ameni if the unclean are henceforth to be permitted to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... cane, and wearing a hat with a turndown brim; grave with an almost menacing gravity, with a trick of folding his arms, shaking his head and raising his upper lip with the lower as high as his nose, in a sort of significant grimace. He had a stub nose with two enormous nostrils, toward which enormous whiskers mounted on his cheeks. His forehead could not be seen, for it was hidden by his hat; his eyes could not be seen because they were lost under his eyebrows; his chin was plunged ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe

... but hope began to beat in his own breast. He had noticed a significant happening during the age-long hours in the commissary cave. Most of the Zeudians had entered from the direction of the pit. But one had come in through an opening in the opposite side. And this one had blinked pale eyes as though dazzled from bright sunlight—and was bearing ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various

... with Madame Montoni, soon after the cloth was withdrawn, and left the cavaliers to their secret councils, but not before the significant frowns of Montoni had warned his wife to depart, who passed from the hall to the ramparts, and walked, for some time, in silence, which Emily did not interrupt, for her mind was also occupied by interests of its own. It required all her resolution, to forbear communicating ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... the book, looking casually through its pages. Detail was unimportant here. There was, he realized with a feeling of frustration, only a sort of dull pattern, with no significant ...
— Alarm Clock • Everett B. Cole

... would have been nothing if only one had seen it, but all saw it; and it was this: the sheep raised his head; his goggling eyes became alive and sparkled; and the black, bristling moustache, which appeared for one instant, made a significant gesture at those present. All, at once, recognized Basavriuk's countenance in the sheep's head: my grandfather's aunt thought it was on the point of asking for vodka. . . . The worthy elders seized their ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various

... head slightly. Then, turning toward Mrs. Drayton, with a significant glance, "Your poor son is going ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... Newman uttered a significant grunt, and taking Mr Mantalini's proffered card, limped with it into his master's office. As he thrust his head in at the door, he saw that Ralph had resumed the thoughtful posture into which he had fallen after perusing his nephew's letter, and that he seemed to have been reading ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... Moreover, even could we claim more for John Lyly than this, any aesthetic criticism would of necessity become a secondary matter in comparison with his importance in other directions, for to the scientific critic he is or should be one of the most significant figures in English literature. This claim I hope to justify in the following pages; but it will be well, by way of obtaining a broad general view of our subject, to call attention to a few points upon which our ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson

... well as he could, but received the same reply as before, "Piratas! piratas!" while their captors pointed with significant gestures to some horizontal branches of trees which stretched across the path, intimating, as they all supposed, that the branches would be ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... for Hippy Wingate is begun. Significant trail-signs are discovered. Grace Harlowe makes a find. "Hippy's hat!" gasps Miss Briggs. A mysterious message is tossed into the Overland camp at night. The girls are encouraged by a ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower

... position is not enviable. The seas continually break on the weather bulwarks and scatter clouds of heavy spray over the backs of all who must venture into, the waist of the ship. The dogs sit with their tails to this invading water, their coats wet and dripping. It is a pathetic attitude, deeply significant of cold and misery; occasionally some poor beast emits a long pathetic whine. The group forms a picture of wretched dejection; such a life is truly hard ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... this animal are found, it seems very questionable if the long noses are other than parts of grotesque masks. The superficial resemblance of the curious nose pieces of the masks on the panel of the Maya facades to elephants' trunks does not seem to us especially significant, as otherwise the carvings are quite unlike elephants. They have no great tusks as an elephant should, but, instead, short recurved teeth similar to those representing peccary tusks, as ...
— Animal Figures in the Maya Codices • Alfred M. Tozzer and Glover M. Allen

... race came off, an ambulance-carriage was driven into the centre of the ground and took up a central position so as to be able to quickly reach any part of the course. I was assured that it was not at all unusual for two or three jockeys to be injured in one race. Another significant and permanent adjunct of the Caulfield racecourse is the neat little hospital, provided with every possible medical and surgical appliance for remedying injuries to the human frame. There are eight beds in the hospital, and I was told that they had at times been all filled ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey

... day, the 1st December, about three o'clock in the afternoon, as General Leflo's father-in-law crossed the boulevard in front of Tortoni's, some one rapidly passed by him and whispered in his ear these significant words, "Eleven o'clock—midnight." This incident excited but little attention at the Questure, and several even laughed at it. It had become customary with them. Nevertheless General Leflo would not go to bed until the hour mentioned ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo

... powers of Nature were regarded by the nations of remote antiquity with an awe and reverence so great, as to form an object of worship, under a symbol, of all others the most significant,—the Phallus; and thus was founded a religion, of which the traces exist to this day, not in Asia only, ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport

... subserviency. His plan of squatter sovereignty had not got the Southerners Kansas, or any other slave State, to balance California and Minnesota and Oregon. They demanded of Congress positive protection for slavery in the Territories. The most significant debate of the session was between Douglas on the one side and a group of Southern senators, led by Jefferson Davis, on the other. He stood up against them manfully, and told them frankly that not a single Northern State ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown

... was a kind of stone-parapet about two feet and a half high, and on the top of this there were eight fire-places. As the Chinamen cook their own food there might be as many as eight men here at one time. I asked the guide if they ever quarreled. His answer was significant. "No! and it would be difficult to bring eight men of any other nationality together in such close proximity without differences arising and contentions taking place; but the Chinamen never trouble each other." There was only one man cooking at such a late hour ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey

... The river ran beneath me, cold and dark. I leaned over the stone balustrade and stared at the dark forms of barges. Yes, it was true enough that I had not realized that the germ would keep Mr. Annot alive indefinitely. Sarakoff's significant whistle that morning came to my mind, and I saw that I had been guilty of singular denseness in ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne

... time she entered the room to change the plates or hand round the dishes she went through remarkable pantomimic gestures behind the unconscious William's back. She drew my attention to him by nods, winks, and significant gestures. Once or twice she was impelled to clap her hand over her mouth and dash from the room in a spasm of uncontrollable mirth. It was most unnerving; and what with William's gloomy looks, Marion's abstraction, ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick

... fancied that she understood him, but she wondered how far it was significant that they should slide out into the flood of radiance together when he once more ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss

... report was adopted by a vote of thirty-seven yeas to twelve nays; but it was a rather significant fact that there were twenty-six absent, including Senators Aldrich, Dawes, Evarts, Morgan, and some of the most ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom

... The Searcher of all hearts may make as ample a trial of you in your conduct to one poor dependent, as of the man who is appointed to lead armies and administer provinces. Nay, your treatment of some animal entrusted to your care may be a history as significant for you, as the chronicles of kings for them. The moral experiments in the world may be tried with ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps

... the war. Throughout the recent legislation of Congress the undeniable fact makes itself apparent that these ten political communities are nothing less than States of this Union. At the very commencement of the rebellion each House declared, with a unanimity as remarkable as it was significant, that the war was not "waged upon our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those States, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... religion;—their personality, observe, as distinguished from merely symbolical visions. For instance, when Jeremiah has the vision of the seething pot with its mouth to the north, you know that this which he sees is not a real thing; but merely a significant dream. Also, when Zechariah sees the speckled horses among the myrtle trees in the bottom, you still may suppose the vision symbolical;—you do not think of them as real spirits, like Pegasus, seen in the form of horses. But when you ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... those of the deliberate interpolations. The work thus restored, although one, coherent and logical, is still susceptible of various interpretations, according to the point of view of the reader, none of which, however, can ignore the significant fact that the sceptically ideal basis of Koheleth's metaphysics is identical with that of Buddha, Kant, and Schopenhauer, and admirably harmonises with the ethics of Job and the ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon

... told myself pessimistically; underneath it was a cruel world. Before me in the garden path, a jubilant robin was pulling an unhappy angle worm from the ground, and a little farther on, under a blossoming apple tree, the kitchen cat was breakfasting on a baby robin. The double spectacle struck me as significant of life. I was casting about for some philosophical truths to fit it, when my revery was interrupted by a ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster

... toward Gust's tent the Maori felt the edge of his long knife with one grimy, calloused thumb. The Swede would have felt far from comfortable could he have seen this significant action, or read what was passing amid the convolutions of the brown ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... the Bull of Pope Alexander VI dividing the New World between Spain and Portugal. England, France, and Russia sent repeated expeditions into the Pacific. In 1646 the British Admiralty sent two ships to look in Hudson's Bay for a northwest passage to the South Sea, one of which bore the significant name of California. The voyage of Francis Drake, 1577-1580, was a private venture, but at Drake's Bay he proclaimed the sovereignty of Elizabeth, and named the country New Albion. Two hundred years later (1792-1793) Captain George Vancouver explored the coast of California down to thirty ...
— The March of Portola - and, The Log of the San Carlos and Original Documents - Translated and Annotated • Zoeth S. Eldredge and E. J. Molera

... doubled during the past year—reconnaissance, artillery observation, photography, bombing, contact patrol, and, above all, fighting. Air scraps have tended more and more to become battles between large formations. But most significant is the rapid increase in attacks by low-flying aeroplanes on ground personnel and materiel, a branch which is certain to become an important factor in ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott

... Japan had exacted as indemnity for the Hanabusa outrage. Japan desired Korea's friendship, he declared, not her money. He also brought a stand of Japanese-made rifles, a gift from the Emperor to the King, and a very significant gift, too. The Minister urged on the King the helpless condition of China, and the futility of expecting assistance from her, and begged the King to take up a bold position, announce Korea's independence and dare China's ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie

... the most significant, the most wonderful of all. Norma Berwynd a star! Phillips could scarcely credit it; he wondered if she had the faintest notion of how or why her ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... Near the table, in a high-backed armchair, reclined, fast asleep, a woman of about thirty years of age, her face the very picture of health and freshness. Upon her knees lay a large cat, with her paws folded under her, and her eyes half-closed, purring in that significant manner which, according to feline habits, indicates perfect contentment. The two friends paused before the window in complete amazement, while Planchet, perceiving their astonishment, was in no little degree secretly ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... is yet more explicit in another passage of the same work, which we give in the original Latin:—"Non dantur pro hoc statu nomina quae Deum significant quidditative. Patet; quia nomina sunt conceptuum. Non autem dantur in hoc statu conceptus quidditativi ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel

... tongue came back to him almost as a forgotten boyish memory, so that he was soon able to do without an interpreter; but not until that functionary, who knew his secret, appeared one day as a more significant ambassador. "Gray Eagle says if you want truly to be a brother to his people you must take a wife among them. He loves you—take one of his!" Peter, through whose veins—albeit of mixed blood—ran that Puritan ice so often found throughout the Great West, was frigidly amazed. In vain did the interpreter ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte

... not accomplished in its use, even in the midst of a civilization where gestures are deprecated, when at fault for words resort instinctively to physical motions that are not wild nor meaningless, but picturesque and significant, though perhaps made by the gesturer for the first time. An uneducated laborer, if good-natured enough to be really desirous of responding to a request for information, when he has exhausted his scanty stock of words will eke them out by original gestures. ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery

... an important clue to the murderer of Mrs. Vernon, and it is significant in this connection that a man answering to the description of Soames was apprehended at Olton (Birmingham) late last night. (See Page 6). The police are very reticent in regard to the new information which they hold, but it is evident that at last they are confident of establishing a ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer

... I have been watching you painting. I never imagined anybody could draw so swiftly, so easily—paint so surely, so accurately—that every brush stroke could be so—so significant, so decisive.... Is it not unusual? And is not that what is ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers

... said dryly, "although, as I say, I'm not qualified to give an opinion on patent law. You say that gadget is designed to cause minute, but significant, changes in the velocities of small, moving objects. Just how does that make ...
— ...Or Your Money Back • Gordon Randall Garrett

... influence and intimate interest of the Kaiser, and undoubtedly this represents the wisest step he ever made in the realm of aeronautics. It certainly has enabled the German military machine to become possessed of a significant fleet of what may be described as a really efficient and reliable type of dirigible. The exact number of military Parsevals in commission is unknown, but there are several classes thereof, in the nature ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot

... very uncomfortable. She wished her uncle would make haste and write his reply; but he sat at his desk, passing his fingers through his hair; a method with which he was familiar when puzzled. Then he rose and cast a significant glance at his wife who followed ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel

... mountains whose base is on this solid earth. Yet, however sure we may be of that fact, we do not cease to wonder. And as we gaze upon that line of snowy summits no more—indeed, less—intrinsically beautiful than many a cloud, yet unspeakably more significant, we are curiously elated. Something in us leaps to meet the mountains. And we cannot keep our eyes away. We seem lifted up, and feel higher possibilities within ourselves and within the world than we had ever known before. As we travel onward we strain ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband

... significant as to the possibility of the escape of Napoleon that Joseph succeeded in getting on the brig Commerce as "M. Bouchard," and, though the ship was thrice searched by the English, he got to New York on the 28th of August, ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... of religions is a very curious history," said the stranger in her low clear tones. "Looked at dispassionately, it has done very little for mankind in general, save to prove one fundamental truth that is more significant than any doctrine or dogma. That truth is the inherent need in all humanity of something to worship. From the highest to the lowest degrees of civilisation that need has made itself the exponent of external forms. It is the kernel of ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)

... of itself suspicious to those who were familiar with the western bronco, and the laid-back ears were significant to them ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower

... long-planned projects, which would, he believed, revolutionise the technique of painting. Whether for good or evil, his influence on the younger men in Paris has been powerful, though it is now on the wane. How far they have gone astray in imitating him is the most significant thing related by Emile Bernard, a friend of Paul Gauguin and a member ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... talk of humane methods of slaughtering; but it is significant that there is considerable difference of opinion as to what is the most humane method. In England the pole-axe is used; in Germany the mallet; the Jews cut the throat; the Italians stab. It is obvious that each ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon

... shrilly that his horse looked up with a start. The next instant his watch dropped forgotten from his fingers and his nimble little legs scurried for territory beyond the log. Nor did he pause upon reaching that supposedly safe ground. The swift glance he gave the nearby river was significant as well as apprehensive. It moved him to increased but ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... girl developed into the graceful, unscrupulous society woman. She was always fascinating to the brightest men and women of her own and other lands. But the early years of social triumph, when she still had the beautiful eyes admired by Voltaire, are less significant than the nearly thirty years of blindness in the convent of St. Joseph, which after her affliction she made her home. Here she held her famous receptions for the literary and social celebrities of Paris. Here Mademoiselle Lespinasse endured a miserable ten years as her companion, then rebelled ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world. We then see, what is always true, that as the seer's hour of vision is short and rare among heavy days and months, so is its record, perchance, the least part of his volume. The discerning will read, in his Plato[36] or Shakespeare, ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... He rode fast and far; and impossible it would be to define the feelings that passed through a mind so acutely sensitive, and so rootedly tenacious of all affections. When, recalling his duty to the Italian, he once more struck into the road to Norwood, the slow pace of his horse was significant of his own exhausted spirits; a deep dejection had succeeded to feverish excitement. "Vain task," he murmured, "to wean myself from the dead! Yet I am now betrothed to another; and she, with all her virtues, is not the one to—" He stopped short in generous self-rebuke. "Too late to think of that! ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... It was more significant that Captain von Wegstetten had a letter from his brother-in-law, the head of the first mounted battery, also written in a remarkably Ambrosian vein. "I can tell you"—it ran—"we two heads of batteries thank God on our knees that we are rid of Mohbrinck. My joy ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... countries, of other times and races of men, placing them at a distance in history or space; but let some significant event like the present occur in our midst, and we discover, often, this distance and this strangeness between us and our nearest neighbors. They are our Austrias, and Chinas, and South Sea Islands. Our crowded society becomes well spaced ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau

... this he now saw that the supposed quarrellers had forgotten their differences, and were in the closest kind of an alliance to save the situation. He discovered that until prices had fallen fifty points neither of them had been in the market to any significant extent; and that, to avert the appalling calamities which seemed imminent, both were ready if necessary to impoverish themselves or to take unusual risks of so doing. He learned the real causes of the panic, so far as ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... Delectable Mountains, two of which—The Wanderer and I shall not say the other—have already been sighted. It is like a vast grey box in which are laid helter-skelter a great many toys, each of which is itself completely significant apart from the always unchanging temporal dimension which merely contains it along with the rest. I make this point clear for the benefit of any of my readers who have not had the distinguished privilege of being in jail. To those who have been in jail my meaning is at once apparent; ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings

... he ascended a platform which had likewise been erected at about the center of the bridge. First he extolled himself as one who had undertaken a great enterprise; next he praised the soldiers as men exhausted by the dangers they had faced, adding the significant statement that they had traversed the sea on foot. For this gallantry he gave them money and afterward for the rest of the day and all through the night they enjoyed a banquet,—he on the bridge, as though some island, and ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio

... The flame in the young man's eyes burned clear and steady—but flame it was. Sir Wilfrid remembered him as a lazy, rather somnolent youth; the man's advance in expression, in significant power, ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... is not blind, and if we give ear to Him He will not suffer us to be blind, either to its character or its consequences; but He says that sin can be forgiven, and its iron bondage broken. Jesus believed in the recoverability of man at his worst. It is a fact significant of much that the first mention of sin in the New Testament is in a prophecy of its destruction: "Thou shalt call His name Jesus; for it is He that shall save His people from their sins." And throughout the first three Gospels sin is named almost exclusively in connection ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson

... story that I tell of what happened to us at Lystra has been told with some care by me, for it is significant of what has happened to me for twenty years, since the day, as you have heard, when the Lord Jesus himself spoke to me out of the clouds and appointed me to preach the Gospel he had given unto me, which, upheld by him, I have preached faithfully, followed wherever I went by persecution from ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... of New Orleans" makes the significant statement that the quadroon women of that city preferred white fathers for their children, in order that these latter might become white and thereby be qualified to enter the world of opportunity. More than one ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... mother country. Hence there is always a hope that, if the first two were destroyed, the third might be preserved. So, for instance, the collection of royal decrees (cedulas) is imperfect at the City of Mexico. There are lacunae of several decades, and it is perhaps significant that the same gaps are repeated in the publication of the "Cedulas" by Aguiar and Montemayor. In regard to ecclesiastical documents the difficulty is greater still. The archives of the Franciscan Order, ...
— Documentary History of the Rio Grande Pueblos of New Mexico; I. Bibliographic Introduction • Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier

... "It corrects a sharpness of temper, and sweetens and softens the mind." It does not take fire at the least opposition or unkindness, nor "make a man an offender for a word." One of the servants of Nabal described his character in this significant manner: "He is such a son of Belial that a man cannot speak to him." There are many such sons and daughters of Belial. They are so sulky and sour, so fretful and peevish, that you can hardly speak to them, but they will snap and snarl like a growling watch-dog; ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb

... felt that this appearance of Jesus in the synagogue of his home city at the outset of his public work was a significant occasion. The passage from Isaiah (61:1f) was doubtless one of the favorite quotations of Jesus. He saw his own aims summarized in it and he now announced it as his program. Its promises were now about to be realized. ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch

... declare it. Gordon himself soon realised his own position, for he wrote: "I shall be caught in Khartoum; and even if I was mean enough to escape I have not the power to do so." After a month's interruption he succeeded in getting the following message, dated 8th April, through, which is significant as showing that he had abandoned all hope of being supported ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... was expected by all of us that knew how these things are done and are likely to go. We could not do much that day; there would have to be an adjournment, after taking what he might call the surface evidence. He understood, he remarked, with a significant glance at the police officials and at one or two solicitors that were there, that there was some extraordinary mystery at the back of this matter, and that a good many things would have to be brought to light before the jury could ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher

... exciting worship; as in Roman Catholic countries they still are. Moreover, the sculptured figures of Christ on the cross, of virgins, of saints, were coloured; and it needs but to call to mind the painted madonnas still abundant in continental churches and highways, to perceive the significant fact that Painting and Sculpture continue in closest connection with each other where they continue in closest connection with their parent. Even when Christian sculpture became differentiated from painting, it was still religious and governmental in its subjects—was used ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... difference between the instinctive selection of Napoleon and that of the rooster, one of temperament or sex? In either case, it is significant enough to lead one to ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various

... of eminence, notably Edwin H. Lemare, are strongly opposed to the new method of control, but the majority, especially the rising generation of organists, warmly welcome the change. It is significant that whereas Hope-Jones was for years the only advocate of the system, four or five of the builders in this country, and a dozen foreign organ-builders, are now supplying stop-keys either exclusively or for a considerable number of their ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller

... between the river bank and the margin of the tule, in which the brute seemed to disport a few moments; and then the rustling of the reeds indicated that it was about to advance. With heavy footfalls it came toward me; as it approached my nervousness increased; I could not mistake that significant tread; undoubtedly it was a grizzly bear. But how could I escape? Bruin, though his progress was not unimpeded, was surely drawing near. Following my first impulse in this pressing emergency, I placed myself forward in the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... French competitors and, in answer to his confused murmur of compliment, the swarthy face of the driver had disclosed a line of shining white teeth. It was pleasant after that honour to return to the profane world of spectators amid nudges and significant looks. Then as to money—he really had a great sum under his control. Segouin, perhaps, would not think it a great sum but Jimmy who, in spite of temporary errors, was at heart the inheritor of solid instincts knew well with what difficulty it had been got together. This knowledge ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce

... to do he had betaken himself to his gentler pursuits, and in the renewed health of his muscles felt himself a better man. He had his turn of being startled, there was no doubt of that. Esther here! his eyes were all for her. It meant something significant, they seemed to say. Why, except for an emphatic reason, should she, after this absence, have come to Jeff? He even seemed to be ignoring Madame Beattie as he stepped forward to Esther, with outstretched hand. There was a welcome in his manner, a ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown

... Cresswell had seen the Northern girl disappear toward the swamp; for it is significant when maidens run from lovers. But maidens should also come back, and when, after the lapse of many minutes, Mary did not reappear, he followed ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... blood boiled at the sight of these vulgar outrages, and he exclaimed: "Why don't they sweep off four or five hundred of that canaille with cannon? The rest would then run away fast enough." The remark is significant. If his brain approved the Jacobin creed, his instincts were always with monarchy. His career was to reconcile his reason with his instincts, and to impose on weary France the curious compromise ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... which attaches to the beginning of any great thing; and the full observer of European affairs, who understands what part religion or superstition plays in the story of Europe, will note this enormously significant detail. The first Germans to cross the violated frontier accomplished that act upon the same day and at the same hour as that in which their forerunners had crossed the French frontier ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc

... The most significant campaign in Europe was yet to follow. In 500 B.C., the Ionian cities in Asia Minor subject to the Persian authority revolted. The Greeks of Europe lent aid to their sister states. Sardis was sacked and burned by the insurgents. With the revolt ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... a significant fact that the appearances of Jesus after his Resurrection were all made to the faithful, and his ascension took place before them, without a single impartial person being allowed to witness an event of ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote

... small things, but significant. A casual eye glancing over the ranks of the Black Fleet as it lay around the scene of the tragedy, waiting for orders, would not have noticed any difference. The launch containing the fleet's admiral, which had been fussing about with its load of officers and various dignitaries, ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall

... When a spider rests inactive it is a sign of rain: if she works during a rain, be sure it will soon clear up and remain clear for some time. The spider, it is said, changes her web every twenty-four hours, and the part of the day she chooses to do this is always significant. If it occurs a little before sunset, the night will be fine and clear. Hence the old French proverb: "Araignee du ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various

... significant sign, and then stepping up to the woman, spoke to her in a low and urgent tone. She did not, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various

... the date of Adam to that in which I now write, so very few men whom the world will agree to call wise, and out of that very few so scant a percentage with names sufficiently known to make them more popularly significant of pre-eminent sagacity than if ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... this, however disquieting might be the uncertainty due to the ominous silence on the other side of the Atlantic, and the non-arrival of the expected fleet, there stood the great and significant fact that the army of the League had been permitted, without molestation either from the Terrorists or the Federation in whose name they had presumed to declare war upon him, not only to destroy what remained ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith

... to breakfast at General Soult's, he observed the countenances of his soldiers rather inclined to laughter than to wrath; and he heard some jests, significant enough in the vocabulary of encampments, and which informed him that contempt was not the sentiment with which your navy had inspired his troops. The occurrences of these two days hastened his departure from the coast for Aix-la-Chapelle, where the cringing ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... the parson was always well heeled, and no one questioned his courage. His friends contented themselves with pitying smiles and significant glances at one another. Felix hastily swallowed his toddy, with the evident intention of airing his emphatic views, ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... on this first day, during my cautious occasional peeps, that the captain was particularly attentive to the young lady; in which, indeed, I should have found nothing significant—for she had in a special degree been committed to his trust—but for the circumstance of his being a bachelor. Even then, early and fresh as the time was for thinking of such things, I guessed when I looked at the girl that the hardy mariner alongside of her would not ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell

... utterly contemptuous. If I suddenly asked him what he wanted, he would make me no answer, but continue staring at me persistently for some seconds, then, with a peculiar compression of his lips and a most significant air, deliberately turn round and deliberately go back to his room. Two hours later he would come out again and again present himself before me in the same way. It had happened that in my fury I did not even ask him what he wanted, but simply raised my head sharply and imperiously and began staring ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky

... household mirth or grief, and deports himself accordingly. Hence, his energies and his sensibilities are all expanded, and what he feels he seeks to tell in various accents, and in different ways. For instance, our little dog comes and pulls his mistress's gown and makes significant whines, if any one is in or about the premises whom he thinks has no right to be there. I have seen a dog pick up a stick and bring it in his mouth to his master, looking at the water first and then at his master, evidently that the stick might be thrown into it, that he might have the pleasure ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse

... shore, called by legend the burial-place of Vortigern. Here Mrs. Abbott spoke of the prehistoric monuments she had seen in Brittany, causing Alma to glance at her with a sudden surprise. The impulse was very significant. Thinking of her guest only as a poverty-stricken teacher of children, Alma forgot for the moment that this subdued woman had known happier days, when she too boasted of liberty, and stored her mind in travel. After all, as soon ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... not seen during the evening, came into the room to kiss her relatives and say good-night to the company. Sylvie turned her cheek coldly to the pretty creature, as if to avoid kissing her. The motion was so cruelly significant that the ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... this time Colonel Wellmere did not make his appearance; he breakfasted in his own room, and, notwithstanding certain significant smiles of the man of science, declared himself too much injured to rise from his bed. Leaving him, therefore, endeavoring to conceal his chagrin in the solitude of his chamber, the surgeon proceeded ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... entertained some project in connection with New York, which led him to withhold troops called for by the imperious necessities of Washington. The neglect of these orders brought a pointed letter from Hamilton, and an equally significant rebuke from Washington himself. In the following spring, Putnam was relieved of his command in the Highlands by the appointment of General McDougal to the post, and was ordered to Connecticut to superintend the raising of the new levies. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various

... read more: he knew my secret! The significant glance of his eye told me so. He knew why I was lingering there. The satiric smile upon his lip attested it. He saw my efforts to obtain an interview, and confident in his own position, held my failure but lightly—a something ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... course. From the report addressed to Mr. Chamberlain by the Land Settlement Commission, of which Mr. Arnold-Forster was chairman, and from that presented to Lord Milner by Sir William (then Mr.) Willcocks[302] on Irrigation in South Africa, there emerged three significant conclusions. Racial fusion, or the ultimate solution of the nationality difficulty, was to be found in the establishment of British settlers upon the land, living side by side with the Dutch farmers and identified with them by common ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold

... broke to meet the vertical rim-wall, to lose its grace in a different order and color of rock, a stained yellow cliff of cracks and caves and seamed crags. And straight before Venters was a scene less striking but more significant to his keen survey. For beyond a mile of the bare, hummocky rock began the valley of sage, and the mouths of canyons, one of which surely was another ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey

... course, and thus drove a thriving business; and was fully convinced that he had made a good speculation by the sale of himself, for had he been sick his master must have supported him. Occasionally some of the free blacks become slaves voluntarily by going through the simple but significant ceremony of breaking a spear in the presence of their future master. A Portuguese officer, since dead, persuaded one of the Makololo to remain in Tette, instead of returning to his own country, and tried also to induce him to break a spear before ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... regard as characteristic of the orchestra. If a wrong note was played, there was nothing to hide its nakedness. It was as though a penetrating flood of cold white light were poured upon the music and made it transparent: one perceived every remotest and least significant detail with a vivid distinctness that can only be compared with a page of print seen through a strong magnifying glass, or, perhaps better still, with a photograph seen through a stereoscope. As in a stereoscope, the outlines were defined with a degree of clearness and sharpness that almost hurt ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman

... significant of happiness and joyful tidings; a single bird flying means speedy news, telegrams; birds in a row on a branch or line show that there will be vexatious delay in receiving some wished-for news; birds in a circle denote cogitation followed by swift decision. ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent

... "orang-outang," the Jakkuns, or the wild men of the interior. A sound like the constant blowing of a steam-whistle in the distance was said to be produced by a large monkey. Yells, hoarse or shrill, and roars more or less guttural, were significant of any of the wild beasts with which the forest abounds, and recalled the verse in Psalm civ., "Thou makest darkness that it may be night, wherein all the beasts of the forest do move." Then there were cries as of fierce gambols, ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... It was significant that the broadbill swordfish did not return to Avalon in 1918, as in former years. I saw only one in two months roaming the ocean. A few were seen. Not one was caught during my stay on the island. Many boatmen and anglers believe that the broadbills follow the albacore. ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey

... deeds, however, were such that the very term Vandal has come to be used as a designation of any man of ferocious character. Concerning the important part that this chieftain acted in the downfall of the Western empire, Gibbon uses this significant language: "Genseric, a name which, in the destruction of the Roman empire, has deserved an equal rank with the names of Alaric and Attila." Vol. ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith

... relate could be imagined than the Desolation Islands, so called, in 1779, by Captain Cook. I lived there for several weeks, and I can affirm, on the evidence of my own eyes and my own experience, that the famous English explorer and navigator was happily inspired when he gave the islands that significant name. ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne

... conceiving the nature of his obligation. It was not a legal duty, for law had not yet penetrated into the precinct of the Family. To call it moral is perhaps to anticipate the ideas belonging to a later stage of mental development; but the expression "moral obligation" is significant enough for our purpose, if we understand by it a duty semi-consciously followed and enforced rather by instinct and ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine

... virtually subject the treasure also to his disposal. The first Roman Emperor, in his attempt to seize the sacred treasure, silenced the opposition of the officer to whose charge it had been committed by a significant allusion to his sword. By a selection of political instruments for the care of the public money a reference to their commissions by a President would be quite as effectual an argument as that of Caesar to the Roman knight. I am not ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... little red cushion, sits the Prince, almost lost in the hugh old walnut chair of his forefathers. Down the table sit the ten ministers of the departments of state, all of them loving the handsome little fellow on the necessary pile of statutes, but all of them more or less indifferent to his significant ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... mental equilibrium. She had endeavoured to prevent this meeting, because she thought it was not fair to Fitz. She noted the approval with which Mrs. Harrington's keen eyes rested on the young sailor, and endeavoured somewhat obviously to draw Agatha's attention to it by frowns and heavily significant nods, ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman

... two had turned to mount the stairs, caught a significant flash from Garry's dark eyes as a further reminder of his silence, and, opening the front door, closed it ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith

... primary rooms in the public schools of Worcester, Mass., showed that out of a total of 206 children, 57 began with the little finger and 149 with the thumb. But the fact that nearly three-fourths of the children began with the thumb, and but one-fourth with the little finger, is really far less significant than would appear at first thought. Children of this age, four to eight years, will count in either way, and sometimes seem at a loss themselves to know where to begin. In one school room where this experiment was tried the ...
— The Number Concept - Its Origin and Development • Levi Leonard Conant

... curious berry-like or acorn-like growths, springing from both leaf and stem. I knew, of course, that they were insect-galls, but never before had they meant quite so much, or fitted in so well as a significant phenomenon in the nexus of entangling relationships between the weed and its environment. This visitor, also a minute wasp of sorts, neither bit nor cut the leaves, but quietly slipped a tiny egg here and ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... narrow and lancet-shaped, were deeply recessed; the slender shafts of the columns were carried in clusters to a vast height, surmounted by pinnacles of rich and elegant tracery; these gave a light and airy character to the whole, highly significant of the buoyant feelings that accompanied so wonderful an escape from the heavy ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... Socialist movement has nowhere achieved political power, obviously it can neither claim political success or be accused of political failure. Nor does this fact leave Socialism as a mere theory, in view of its admitted and highly significant success in organizing and educating the masses in many countries and animating them with the purpose of controlling industry ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... with a significant motion of his finger toward the lone figure of the girl, drew nearer and the boys ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh

... and the Romans, beautiful and significant names were studied. The sublime Plato himself has noticed the present topic; his visionary ear was sensible to the delicacy of a name; and his exalted fancy was delighted with beautiful names, as well as every other species of beauty. In his ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... Lodovico Sforza, the Regent of Milan, was also among those who called in the French, as he had a family quarrel with Naples. His father, Francesco, the most successful of the Condottieri, who acquired the Milanese by marriage with a Visconti, is known by that significant saying: "May God defend me from my friends. From my enemies I can defend myself." As the Duke of Orleans also descended from the Visconti, Lodovico wished to divert the French to the more ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... Head, Knees. Each meditation is treated in a period of blank verse, usually of a beautiful texture, the splendour of which is due less to actual images than to the inner vigour of ideas and the eagerness with which even the simplest facts are interpreted into significant symbols. Yet, sometimes, this blank verse becomes hard and stony under the stubborn hammering of a too insistent mind, and the device of ending each meditation with a line accented on its last syllable tends but to increase the monotony ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno

... disappointing to the hopes entertained by the Legislative Department of the State, that independent financial encouragement could possibly foster and develop steam successfully, than it was in its former most significant failures. ...
— History of Steam on the Erie Canal • Anonymous

... the world, enjoying life and working wonders, till the term of the compact having expired, the devil appeared and carried him off amid display of horrors to the abode of penal fire. This myth, which has been subjected to manifold literary treatment, has received its most significant rendering at the hands of Goethe, such as to supersede and eclipse every other attempt to unfold its meaning. It is presented by him in the form of a drama, in two parts of five acts each, of which the first, published in 1790, represents ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... discipline. I was always struck, not merely by the courtesy of the men, but also by a certain sober decency of language. If a man had to report to me any disagreeable fact, for instance, he was sure to do it with gravity and decorum, and not blurt it out in an offensive way. And it certainly was a significant fact that the ladies of our camp, when we were so fortunate as to have such guests, the young wives, especially, of the adjutant and quartermaster, used to go among the tents when the men were ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... Madame smiled—a significant smile, if any one had been looking. Nothing further was said until Melanie unexpectedly shot straight to ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger

... marriage with Manchus—has been far too little noticed by historians though it throws a flood of light on the sociological aspects of the Manchu conquest. Had that conquest been absolute it would have been impossible for the Chinese people to have protected their womenfolk in such a significant way.] ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale

... conversation, we were interrupted by the appearance of Betteredge with the tea-tray. He gave me another significant look as he passed on into the sitting-room. "Aye! aye! make your hay while the sun shines. The Tartar's upstairs, Mr. ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... decades great interest has been revived in them. The glee club, or choral society, along with the college orchestra, minister to the specialized interests of some students, and the dramatic association to those of others. One significant result of such activities has been to establish a nexus between the college and ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... narrative produced a profound impression. Heads drooped as if in meditation upon the mystery and meaning of life; significant glances were exchanged; tears trembled in many eyes; these torpid natures received a shock which for a moment awakened ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss

... night that man was killed. He was not long in getting on the track of that. And the more mysterious my visit seems to him—and the fact that I have not disclosed to the police that I went up to Riversbrook and saw Sir Horace on the night of the tragedy is to his way of thinking very significant—the more reason is there for suspecting me of complicity in ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson

... not be long to wait. Therefore bring me three books," which she named, works of authors of extreme agnostic views. Rather reluctantly he complied with her wish. She went steadily through the joyless pages, turned the last with the significant remark: "If this is all they can say, well!—" The skeleton cupboard, once opened, was speedily swept out. She quickly recovered, but never forgot her experience. Yet it must be remembered that this was the patient's own prescription, and was permitted by one who thoroughly understood ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various

... Note the significant fact that we always hear of the "fall of man," not the fall of woman, showing that the consensus of human thought has been more unerring than masculine interpretation. Reading this narrative carefully, it is amazing that any set of men ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... uniform, and completely equipped with boats, capstan, blocks, hawsers, cables, davits, cat-heads, bars, bolts, buckets, chocks, compasses, and even three brass cannons; in short with everything that may be seen in a large ship. She bears the significant name of "The Star of the Sea." Had he been able to exhibit it, as he intended, at the late Dublin Exhibition, there is no doubt that it would have attracted considerable attention, which perhaps might have led to a substantial recognition of merit having been awarded to a poor dumb ...
— Anecdotes & Incidents of the Deaf and Dumb • W. R. Roe

... found, buried beneath it, the remains of an infant. A story was now divulged, how the former tenant and a female of the neighbourhood had, a very few years before, abruptly left the village. The apparition here was real and significant enough. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... something associated with confinement and restriction. It is significant that her tail was unattached. I took it to mean a wish-fulfilment dream; in it she got free ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill

... uttered more than monosyllables in Dr. John's presence; he was the kind of person with whom I was likely ever to remain the neutral, passive thing he thought me. Now, however, I took licence to answer in a phrase: and a phrase I purposely made quite significant. ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... and doing a brisk trade in souvenir postcards of the overhanging Virgin. Traffic, as always through a main artery supplying the prevalent battlefield, was positively continuous. The first rain of autumn had already fallen and men, horses and vehicles all bore mud stains significant of winters approach. Our arrival—we went into empty, rather shell-damaged houses near the station—coincided with the later stages of the Beaumont Hamel offensive, and German prisoners and, of course, British casualties were ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose

... The morning sun shone in my windows, and laid in golden bars upon my bed. I thought long of the vision of the night, and then sat down to pen it to you. To me it is significant. Write and tell me if it seems but a dream to you. I should like to be permitted to glorify my name, and be the 'Dawn' of light to some ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams

... A significant silence filled the cabin. The men scowled and looked on the floor. The same thought was in every mind. An impossible situation confronted them. How could any one hope to ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner

... upon the whole course of the Kantian Critique of Reason, and which forms one of its poles. The transcendental idealism, the distinction between phenomena and noumena, and the limitation of knowledge to phenomena, all receive significant confirmation from the Antithetic. Without the critical idealism (that which is intuited in space and time, and known through the categories, is merely the phenomenon of things, whose "in itself" is unknowable), the antinomies would be insoluble. How is reason to act in view of the ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... prey upon the human race, whom I hate; because of all the world I alone am so deeply, so terribly accurst!" was the ominously fearful yet only dimly significant reply. ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... is a joy to cherish gratitude. Generous hearts do not need to be told to be thankful, and they who are only thankful to order are not thankful at all. In nothing is the ordinary experience of the ordinary Christian more defective, and significant of the deficiencies of their faith, than in the tepidness and interruptedness of their gratitude. The blessings bestowed are continuous and unspeakable. The thanks returned are grudging and scanty. The river that flows from God ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... was the drift of ideas in the economic sphere, that in the political was no more favourable. Belgium seemed on the point of extinction, Italy was a mere geographical expression, Hungary was abject and broken. In the narrower but even more significant sphere of British colonial policy the passion for centralisation had not yet been understood in all its folly. Downing Street still functioned as the Dublin Castle of the Empire. The possibility of the overseas possessions developing that rich, strong individuality which characterises them ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle

... it is, M. Taine's book can hardly be described as containing much that is new or strikingly significant. He develops one idea, indeed, which we have never before seen stated in its present form, but which, if it implies more than has been often advanced by previous writers in other forms, cannot be accepted as true. This is perhaps a point better worth ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 8: France in the Eighteenth Century • John Morley

... at the breakfast table that Paul Zalenska, listlessly looking over the "Society Notes" in the Times, came upon this significant notice: ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous

... These were very significant questions, of the greatest importance to the two who were shut within the subterranean prison. Fred did not feel himself competent to answer, so he reached over and shook Mickey harder than ever, determined that ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)

... not less significant way, the Passion according to St Matthew made its mark on Mendelssohn from the time when he discovered it at the age of twelve, and suggested to him many features in the general design of oratorios, by means of which he rescued that ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... syllables and having no element in common. Sounds, in fact, are with them as copious as ideas are rare. Impressions, on the other hand, are, of course, infinite in number. By means of more or less significant sounds, then, Fuegian society compounds impressions, and that somewhat imperfectly, rather than exchanges ideas, which alone are the currency of ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett

... the thing would be difficult," Clarke answered in a significant tone. "He hadn't returned when I left, and the country he meant to cross is rugged and covered deep with snow all winter. Food is hard to get and the temperature varies from ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss

... purpose of enforcing his claim to exercise jurisdiction over a foreign Church. But even the authority of Valentinian III., Emperor of the West, did not succeed in obliging Hilary to cede the liberties of the Church of France, and it is a significant fact that the Bishop of {103} Arles is reverenced as a saint by the whole Western Church, although his sense of what was due to his position as a member of the French episcopate would not suffer ...
— A Key to the Knowledge of Church History (Ancient) • John Henry Blunt

... tall, curving screen behind it. Mrs Ewing—as she had done many times before—crossed over to this sofa, sank into its yielding depths, and looking up at her companion, patted the empty seat beside her. The man hesitated for an instant, and then—as he had done many times before—obeyed the significant gesture. But now the time for preparation, for hesitation, had expired; it was necessary to brace himself for the decisive deed. Even as she clasped her hands beneath his ear, he unclasped them, gently but firmly, and drew them down. With his back to the firelight, she ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge

... note the earnestness of his words, and the significant emphasis given to those last pronounced? Whether or not, she refrains making rejoinder: but suffers herself to be borne on through the scaffold tombs without resistance, and silent as the ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid

... charged by one of the magistrates in the queen's name and the governor's to desist from preaching, to depart from the town, and trouble it no more. This was intimated to him when he was in the pulpit, surrounded by a great congregation, and with a significant reminder that he had already been put to the horn, and that there was no intention to relax the law in his favour. Thereupon he called God to witness that he intended not their trouble but their comfort, and felt ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell

... business. His standard was very high, but he came up to it. Courteous and dignified in manner, with a face handsome and winning in youth, and gentle and benignant in age, he made scores of friends wherever he went, for it was a true index to his character. It is a significant and interesting fact that, during the hottest passages of the old nullification times, although his views were known to be uncompromisingly opposed to the attitude of the South, he never lost the warmest friendship of some of the most advanced of the South Carolina leaders. When ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... of living together in mingled competitions and cooperations, regardless of sex, except where the reproductive process is considered. But this view is superficial; born of argument it breaks down when confronted by any body of significant facts. ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes

... change, that seemed significant of his character, he lost his ardor, dropped the half-bold, half-masterful air, and ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey

... mysteries and revelations, upon the comparative neglect of this transitory and imperfect world for the sake of some dream-world far off, which shall subsist without sin or corruption, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. These four are the really significant and formative periods of Greek religious thought; but we may well cast our eyes also on a fifth stage, not historically influential perhaps, but at least romantic and interesting and worthy of considerable respect, when the old religion in the time of Julian roused itself for ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray

... and significant are the words Moses uses—the fountains of the great deep were broken up. The conception he would convey is that they had been closed by God's power and sealed, as it were, with God's seal, as today; and that God did not open them with a key, but rent them with violence, ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther

... a quiet sarcasm in the tone of his reply which was not lost upon her; she shrugged her shoulders, and, turning away with a significant 'Humph!' asked me how I had enjoyed the fun. I replied that I saw no fun in the matter; but admitted that I had not observed ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte

... Isfahan: it was translated into French by Petis de la Croix, with a preface by Cazotte, and was englished by Ambrose Phillips. Lastly, in India and throughout Asia where Indian influence extends, the number of cyphers not followed by a significant number is indefinite: for instance, to determine hundreds the Hindus affix the required figure to the end and for 100 write 101; for 1000, 1001. But the grand fact of the Hazar Afsanah is its being the archetype of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... indicate these strengths and weaknesses. They are as plain to the observing eye as the signs of the woods are significant to the trapper. The news columns tell you what you can expect out of the advertising columns. A newspaper always finds the class of readers to which it is edited. When its mental tone is ...
— The Clock that Had no Hands - And Nineteen Other Essays About Advertising • Herbert Kaufman

... first is that the title imiki was generally that chosen for bestowal on naturalized foreigners; the second, that a conspicuously low place in the list is given to the revered old titles, ami and muraji. This latter feature is significant. The new peerage was, in fact, designed not only to supplant, but also to ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... read it to the end, to the last scribble on the margin: "You should have married a girl like Winny Dymond." "It was a lie what I told you once about her." "You needn't be afraid of being fond of Baby." There was nothing evocative, nothing significant for him in these phrases, not even in the names. His mind had no longer any grip on words. The ideas they stood for were blurred; they were without form or meaning; they rose and shifted like waves, and like ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... significant glance, to call his attention to Taboureau's impassive countenance. Not a muscle had stirred in the usurer's face during this reprimand; there was no flush on his forehead, and no sign of emotion in his ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... father, will he give him a stone?" If this is not at all supposable, in the case of an affectionate earthly parent, much less is it supposable that God the heavenly Father will refuse renewing and sanctifying influences to them that ask for them. By employing such a significant comparison as this, our Lord implies that there is as pressing need of the gift in the one instance as in the other. For, he does not compare spiritual influences with the mere luxuries of life,—with wealth, fame, or power,—but with the very staff of life itself. He selects ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd

... unusually genial this morning. There was nothing in his manner to recall our stormy interview on the previous evening. Perhaps he wished to efface the recollection from my memory, for there was something significant in his smile, as though we perfectly ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... the French Academy—consisting of Dumas, Regnault, Peligot, Chevreul, and Decaisne—were appointed to investigate Ville's experiments. The result of the investigation of the Commission was to confirm Ville's experiments. It is a significant fact, however, that the plant experimented with by the Commission was cress—a non-leguminous plant. It has been commonly assumed that the results of recent experiments have confirmed Ville's experiments. It is only proper to point out that this is not a necessary ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman

... 400[sigma], thereafter the classes are separated by 100[sigma]. It is noticeable that there is one well-marked mode at 75[sigma]. A second mode occurs at 175[sigma]. This is the primary and in our present work the chiefly significant mode, since it is that of the quick instinctive reaction to a stimulus. At 500[sigma] there is a third mode; but as such this has little meaning, since the reactions are usually pretty evenly distributed from 300[sigma] on to 2000[sigma]; if there is any grouping, however, it appears ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various

... actual heart of the labor movement. His words delighted the many, but would he succeed in winning over these tried and experienced men, the leaders who stood behind the whole movement, while quietly going about their own business? He felt that this was the most significant day in his life. ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... parting insult that should at the last moment proclaim their treachery and his own credulity. Doubtless it contained a declaration of their shame, and the reason why she had fled from him without a word of explanation. And the enclosure, of course, was some significant and degrading illustration. Those Americans are full of those low conceits; ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte

... No nation, and no king, was utterly divorced from the councils of God. Palestine, as a central chamber of God's administration, stood in some relation to all. It has been remarked, as a mysterious and significant fact, that the founders of the great empires all had some connection, more or less, with the temple of Jerusalem. Melancthon even observes it in his Sketch of Universal History, as worthy of notice—that Pompey died, as it were, within sight ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... raised there. He saw, too, the yellow-looking man who saluted him with respect, and, for a moment, Ibarra fixed his eyes on him. To his surprise, Ibarra also discovered Elias on the edge of the excavation. He gave the young pilot a significant look, letting him understand that he remembered what he had said ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal

... regiment settled back to waiting, a very intolerable employment. The sun dipped lower and lower. The hush grew portentous. The guns looked old, mailed, dead warriors; the gunboats sleeping forms; the grey troops battle-lines in a great war picture, the three horsemen by the cross-roads a significant group in the same; the dead and wounded over all the fields, upon the slope, in the woods, by the marshes, the jetsam, still and heavy, of war at its worst. For a moment longer the wide and dreary stretch rested ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... arrived at Nashville on the 19th of October, and was met by the rumor that the Secretary of War and General Grant were at Louisville, and that Grant would come down the road by special train next day. He telegraphed the news to Rosecrans with the significant question, What does it mean? Rosecrans knew what it meant, for Grant's order assuming command and relieving him had been earlier telegraphed to him, and he had already penned his dignified and appropriate farewell order to ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... against the marble sides of the pool. She reached up above her head, drawing down a flowering branch of Japanese orange, and caressed her delicate nose with the white blossoms, dreamily, then, mischievously: "I'm accustoming myself to this most significant perfume," she said, looking at him askance. And she deliberately hummed the wedding march, watching the colour ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... of June is unquestionably the most familiar and most celebrated piece of nature poetry in our literature. It is not only beautiful and inspiring in its felicitous phrasings of external nature, but it is especially significant as a true expression of the heart and soul of the poet himself. It was always "the high-tide of the year" with Lowell in June, when his spirits were in fine accord with the universal joy of nature. Wherever in his poetry he refers to spring and its associations, ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell

... [839] It is significant to notice that in the second and abridged edition of the white Paper issued by the Foreign Office these two most important passages marked with an asterisk were omitted and the first edition was ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster

... that of Isabella, especially, though the features are settled in the repose of death, expresses all the grand and noble traits which belonged to her character. The sacristan removed the matting from a part of the floor, disclosing an iron grating underneath, A damp, mouldly smell, significant of death and decay, came up through the opening. He lighted two long waxen tapers, lifted the grating, and I followed him down the narrow steps into the vault where lie the coffins of the Catholic Sovereigns. They were ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor



Words linked to "Significant" :   signify, epochal, considerable, significant figure, insignificant, important, pregnant, large, significant other, significance, prodigious, substantial, remarkable, of import, momentous, earthshaking, world-shattering



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