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






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Plural" Quotes from Famous Books



... pelvis it is really more of an angle than an arch. Also note how much longer and more solid the sacrum (with its attached bone, called the coccyx[2]) is in the male pelvis. The differences in the pelves (the plural of pelvis is pelves) of the male and female become fully marked at puberty, but they are present as early as the fourth ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson

... 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

... of the collection as originally published is obviously ambiguous—is Shepheardes' to be considered as singular or plural? There is a tendency among modern critics to evade the difficulty in such cases by quoting titles in the original spelling. I confess that this practice seems to me both clumsy and pedantic. In the present case there can be little doubt that the title of Spenser's work ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... yourself confronted with the verb "to love"—invariably the normal type of the first conjugation. In every language on earth the student may be heard declaring, with more zeal than discretion, that he and you and they and every other person, singular or plural, have loved, and do love, and will love. "To love" is the model verb; expressing the archetype of activity. Once you can love grammatically there is a world of things you may do without stumbling. For, strange to say, ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various

... their opinions changed, for there arrived from Nantes the commission, perfectly constituted, and wanting, as we have said, neither president, procureur du roi, secretary, nor even executioners. We use the plural, for there ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various

... the plural number of Cleve, a cliff. It is so used by Chaucer. I cannot believe that it was ever used ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton

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

... 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 of His consolations, the strongest of His succours, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... root; his body, the stem; his limbs and head, the formative elements, prefixes and suffixes, case-endings and what not. Let him loose in the sentence, and see how he wriggles gaily from state to state: with a flick of the tail from nominative to genitive, from singular to plural: declaring his meaning, not by means of what surroundings you put about him, but by motions, changes, volitions so to say, of his own. 'Now,' says he, 'I'm pater, and the subject; set me where you will, and I am still the subject, and you can make nothing else of me.' Or, 'Now,' says he, 'I'm ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... Congress to consider what, in the execution of the laws against polygamy, is to be the status of plural wives and their offspring. The propriety of Congress passing an enabling act authorizing the Territorial legislature of Utah to legitimize all children born prior to a time fixed in the act might be justified by its humanity to these innocent children. This ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant • Ulysses S. Grant

... singular and plural) and 4 special cities* (si, singular and plural); Chagang-do (Chagang Province), Hamgyong-bukto (North Hamgyong Province), Hamgyong-namdo (South Hamgyong Province), Hwanghae-bukto (North Hwanghae Province), Hwanghae-namdo (South Hwanghae Province), Kaesong-si* (Kaesong City), Kangwon-do ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... that the memorial be referred to the Committee on the Judiciary with leave to report at any time. It was so referred. The Judiciary Committee of the Senate brought in a bill legitimatizing the offspring of plural marriages to a certain date; also authorizing the president to grant amnesty for past offenses against the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... Mahomedans, or, in the Punjab, of Sikhs, or, in Madras, of 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 made it so in ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol

... example of Early English or First Pointed, which can generally be told from something else by bold projecting buttresses and dog-tooth moulding round the abacusses. (The plural is my own, and it does not look right.) Lincoln Castle was the scene of many prolonged sieges, and was once taken by ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... influence. Thus in Babylonian the name for "sun" or the Sun-god would be Shamash or Shamshu, not Samsu; in the second half of the name, while ilu ("god") is good Babylonian, the ending na, which is the pronominal suffix of the first person plural, is not Babylonian, but Arabic. We need not here enter into a long philological discussion, and the instance already cited may suffice to show in what way many of the names met in the Babylonian inscriptions of this ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall

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

... 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, forget unpardoned sin, and if that ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman

... I ride away to visit my estates (he spoke of them always in the plural, as though he owned a county or two). You have under you the best eyes and the keenest blades along the border for I attended to it! Be ruthless! Use them, work them—sweat them to death! Keep away from messes and parades; seek no praise, for you will get ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... some of the steps,—the little steps, such as you and I could take, toward accomplishing? Yet, even while I ask the question, I see something of what the answer must be. 'Christian homes opening to receive them!' That is a new thought to me, and in the plural number I do not see how just now, it could be done, but one Christian home,—I ought to be able to manage that. Mr. Ried, that is the way to begin it, you may depend. Indeed, I suppose you have tried it? ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden

... division, viz., interruption, contrast, rivalry, etc. Thus, with a singular noun, 'inter coenam hoc accidit,' i.e., this interrupted the supper. And so with two nouns, 'inter me et Brundusium Caesar est.' And so with a plural noun, 'hoc inter homines ambigitur,' i.e., man with man. 'Micat inter omnes Julium sidus,' i.e., in the rivalry of star against star. 'Inter tot annos unus (vir) inventus est,' i.e., though all those years, one by one, ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... out upon a ledge of rock near her feet. "Mrs. Acton was good enough to imply that she had been expecting me more or less anxiously for several days," he rejoined in a tone of reproach. "In fact, she used the plural pronoun, which led me to believe that somebody else must have shared her anxiety. She did not, however, point out who it was that ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss

... formalism, and has stamped itself on the language in some very odd ways. The tendency common to all tongues, towards a disuse of the second person singular, as too blunt and familiar, is carried so far in Spanish and Portuguese as to disuse the second person plural also, except in the family circle, and to substitute the indirect phrases, vuestra Merced (in Spanish) and vossa Merce (in Portuguese), both much contracted in speaking and familiar writing, and both signifying "your Grace." The joke of invariably applying ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... apparent wrong traits, that Christ, Truth, casts out. By no possible interpretation can this passage mean several individuals cast out of another individual no bigger than themselves. The term, being here em- [20] ployed in its plural number, destroys all consistent sup- position of the existence of one personal devil. Again, our text refers to the devil as dumb; but the original devil was a great talker, and was supposed to have out- talked even Truth, and carried ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... Century, and the Eighteenth Century remains; but to continue—"back to the days of the Edwards and the Henrys." But why go back to any other century than the "so-called Nineteenth"? Isn't it only a very few years ago that the EDWARDS, the singular HENRY with plural surname of EDWARDS, sat for Weymouth? What other HENRYS or EDWARDS could ever occur to any ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 18, 1891 • Various

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

... fact that it may still be heard in remote places. Where possible, I have retained the archaic order of the original Text. Such irregular constructions, as e.g., the use of a singular pronoun in the first half of a sentence, and of a plural in the second half, I have left unaltered; for the meaning was perfectly clear. In short, I have endeavoured to make Richard Rolle as he was as significant as possible to English men and women of to-day as they are, when they are not professed ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole

... unknown, your person is invulnerable: at the same time your aim is sure, for you may take it at your leisure; and your blows fall heavier than those of any Writer whose name is given, or who is simply anonymous. There is a mysterious authority in the plural, We, which no single name, whatever may be its reputation, can acquire; and, under the sanction of this imposing style, your strictures, your praises, and your dogmas, will command universal attention; and be received as ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... titles. In these letters the plural "we" and "our" are employed instead of "I" and "my," and ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... Young made were: 1, That some of the pictures of the hieroglyphics stand for the names of the objects delineated; 2, that other pictures are at times only symbolic; 3, that plural numbers are represented by repetition; 4, that numerals are represented by dashes; 5, that hieroglyphics may read either from the right or from the left, but always from the direction in which the animals and human figures face; 6, that a graven oval ring ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... that which eats or devours,) is made up of two Greek words, signifying together flesh-eating, and was applied by the ancients to a species of stone, used for making coffins. Hence, sarcophagus came to signify a stone-coffin. The form of the plural in Latin, ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders

... deal more to say than one has any right to say, and when at the same time one is expected to say particularly little, it is very hard to write a good note. All sorts of ideas creep in and express themselves automatically. A misplaced plural for a singular, a superlative adjective where the vaguer comparative belongs; the vast and immeasurable waste of weary years that may lie between "dear" and "dearest," the gulf placed between "sincerely yours, John Smith," and "yours, J.S.," and "your J.," until the blessed state is reached wherein ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford

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

... prepositions, as 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 tongues in the material of ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt

... book so speckled with your presence. Still, world, hear me; mercifully spare a poor grammarian the penance of perpetual third persons; let an individual tender conscience escape censure for using the true singular in preference to that imposing lie, the plural. Suffer a humble unit to speak of himself as I, and, once for all, let me permissively disclaim intentional self-conceit in the ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... souls or spirits is as improper as the term gods. Soul or Spirit signifies Deity and nothing else. 466:21 There is no finite soul nor spirit. Soul or Spirit means only one Mind, and cannot be rendered in the plural. Heathen mythology and Jewish 466:24 theology have perpetuated the fallacy that intelligence, soul, and life can be in matter; and idolatry and ritualism are the outcome of all man-made beliefs. The Science ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

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

... buildings, especially on castles. This at Coulyng is remarkable from being in English, at a time when Latin was employed in all charters; it contains that early form of the plural 'beth' instead of 'are.' The inscription measures thirty-two inches by fourteen, and the diameter of the seal is no less than seven ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes

... such as the formation of the compound tenses, the formation and the use of the passive voice, and so on. But attempts at inductive teaching of concrete elements of mechanical memory, such as the gender and plural of nouns, or the principal parts of strong verbs, are a misunderstanding of the principles of induction. It goes without saying that thorough drill is much more valuable than the most explicit explanation. It holds good ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... rough world, sustained by an abiding vision of noble womanhood and the sanctity of home. It is an extraordinarily appealing phrase and Lady Moyne used it for all it was worth. As addressed by her to wives and sisters of the Belfast working-men, it had a further value. The plural possessive pronoun bracketed McConkey with Lord Moyne. McConkey's wife, assuming for the moment that he had not abstained from matrimony as he had from tobacco, shared his joys and sorrows, his hopes and fears, ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham

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

... same time 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 ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... Essentially a Cheese Puff, this is 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

... a pocket lens into her hand and bade her survey one of the phials with it. Eleanor's scepticism fled. That something was there, in pretty active life, was evident. Somethings. The kinds were plural. ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner

... Governor imperturbably, "that we must and will get away with it." His emphasis on the plural pronoun caused Archie to cringe. "It strikes me as highly amusing that we have unloaded those bills of Leary's on a good sport like Seebrook. As I locked that stuff in his trunk I got to laughing—really, I did—and a chambermaid roaming the hall must have heard me, for the key rattled ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... 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 ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

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

... me ornieres and lumieres in the plural, my dear Pelisson," said La Fontaine, clapping his hand on the shoulder of his friend, whose insult he had quite forgotten, ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... think you had been describing our Opera, not your own; we have just set out with one in what they call, the French manner, but about as like it, as my Lady Pomfret's hash of plural persons and singular verbs or infinitive moods was to Italian. They sing to jigs, and dance to church music -. Phaeton is run away with by horses that go a foot's-pace, like the Electress's(1338) coach, with such long traces, that the postilion was in one street and ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... one to the noun. For this very reason the declensions are more perfect in Slavic than in German and Greek; for the different cases, as in Latin, are distinguished by suffixed syllables or endings. The Singular has seven cases; the Plural only six, the vocative having always the form of the nominative. As for the Dual, a form which the Slavic languages do not all possess, the nominative and accusative, the genitive and local; the dative and instrumental cases, ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson

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

... noticeable feature is that the middle character, although passing from the singular to the plural number, suffers no ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles

... of her own forgiving, not a word of endearment; and we suspect the word madam had, when written, more blame in it than it now retains—and how do the words "my daughter Sophy and I" cut off the forlorn one from the family!—and the plural "persons" avoiding the individuality, the personality of her daughter was another deep cut into the very flesh of the lost one's heart. Now then comes the reproof, and the good man shines in the glory of goodness ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... the word AUR, in the singular, signified light, but in the plural, AURIM, it denoted the revelation of the divine will; and the aurim and thummim, literally the lights and truths, constituted a part of the breastplate whence the high priest obtained oracular responses to ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey

... 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 ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan

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

... (or, in other words, the results of induction), when reduced to their simplest expression. It is, however, something to have advanced so far, as to see that the study of nature is the study of laws, not a law; of uniformities, in the plural number: that the different natural phenomena have their separate rules or modes of taking place, which, though much intermixed and entangled with one another, may, to a certain extent, be studied apart: that (to resume our former ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... 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 ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... to Latin as can be. Thus mouse in the common Sanskrit is mushas or mushika, both derivative forms if compared with the Latin mus, muris. The Vaidik Sanskrit has preserved the same primitive noun in the plural mush-as Lat. mures. There are other words in the Veda which were lost altogether in the later Sanskrit, while they were preserved in Greek and Latin. Dyaus, sky, does not occur as a masculine in the ordinary ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller

... but who hadn't it in their power to notice anybody. That made such a difference! These were otherer yet! And for all that they were girls,—girls! Ever so much of young life, and glow, and companionship, ever so much of dream, and hope, and possible story, is in just that little plural of five letters. A company of girls! Heaven only knows what there is not represented, ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... forms are commonly used where the German forms would naturally be expected (i.e., in exclusively Brazilian German publications, etc.). Among the forms most frequently used in this manner (in full or abbreviated form, singular or plural) are the following:[53] ...
— The German Element in Brazil - Colonies and Dialect • Benjamin Franklin Schappelle

... the classifier or the searcher has an invention to place or to find including two or more different kinds of characteristics, for each of which a subdivision is provided, but no subdivision for the plural characteristics, it will be known that the invention should be in the subclass for that characteristic which stands before the subclass for ...
— The Classification of Patents • United States Patent Office

... arbitrary symbols. The commonest form of abbreviation is the substitution for a word of its initial letter; but, with a view to prevent ambiguity, one or more of the other letters are frequently added. Letters are often doubled to indicate a plural ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... to me by my experience of the nearest approximation to Proportional Representation which has ever been actually adopted in England. In 1870 Lord Frederick Cavendish induced the House of Commons to adopt 'plural voting' for School Board elections. I fought in three London School Board elections as a candidate and in two others as a political worker. In London the legal arrangement was that each voter in eleven large ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas

... syncretic force of the above line. Giles, in expressing his affection, felt the singular too small, and the vast plural quick supplied the void—Loves must be more ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 12, 1841 • Various

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

... may perhaps have heard the world floe (plural floes) applied to floating sheet-ice, as it is to be found so applied extensively in Captain Parry's Journal of his Second Voyage; but it remains to be shown whether such a term existed in Shakspeare's time. I think it did not, as after diligent search ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 4, Saturday, November 24, 1849 • Various

... bore a striking resemblance to the waltz-loving Diana Clapperton, up and down ball-rooms, to the unspeakable terror of squadrons of turbaned old ladies. Deafening peals of bells, rung by troops of Freddy ColeMEN (which I take to be the correct plural of Coleman), were rousing night-capped nations from their slumbers in alarm, to whom flocks of frightened mayors were bleating forth bewildered orders, which resulted in perplexing everybody; and through it ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... the Prologue to the Book of Foundations, Father Garcia de Toledo, her confessor at St. Joseph's Convent, is said to be responsible for the order to rewrite the "Life"; but in the Preface to the "Life" St. Teresa speaks of her "confessors" in the plural. Fathers Ibanez and Banez may be included in the number. See ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila

... as the Tuscan Maremma, ora maritime, or Maremme—for the plural form is most generally used—lies upon and near the western coast of Tuscany, and comprises about 1,900 square miles English, of which 500 square miles, or 320,000 acres, are plain and marsh including ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

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

... derived. Pedro de Angelis, in his 'Coleccion de Obras y Documentos', derives it from 'gua', paint, and 'ni', sign of the plural, making the signification of the word 'painted ones' or 'painted men'. Demersay, in his 'Histoire du Paraguay',* thinks it probable that the word is an alteration of the word 'guaranai', i.e., numerous. Barco de la Centenera** ('Argentina', ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham

... the fourth scholarship, but I may have betrayed my surprise at the plural pronoun, for the blood rose under Ned's sensitive skin, and he said with an embarrassed laugh: "Ah, she so completely makes me forget that ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... is at the end of a line, a short vowel counts either as long or is dropped according to the exigencies of the metre. In the Hashw the u or i of the pronominal affix for the third person sing., masc., and the final u of the enlarged pronominal plural forms, humu and kumu, may be either short or long, according to the same exigencies. The end-vowel of the pronoun of the first person ana, I, is generally read short, although it ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... seemed to put to me: "Do you perceive how artistic, how very strange and interesting, we are? Frankly now is it possible to be MORE artistic, MORE strange and interesting, than this? You surely won't deny that we're remarkable." I was irritated by her use of the plural pronoun, for she had no right to pair herself with her brother; and moreover, of course, I couldn't see my way to—at all genially—include Mrs. Ambient. Yet there was no doubt they were, taken together, unprecedented enough, and, ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James

... return to England I mentioned this inscription to a friend who, as a young man, had been an excellent Latin scholar; he took a panic into his head that "eritis" was not right for the second person plural of the future tense of the verb "esse." Whatever it was, it was not "eritis." This panic was speedily communicated to myself, and we both puzzled for some time to think what the future of "esse" really ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler

... is meant by "Doctor of Medicine"?—Give the abbreviation.—What does LL.D. mean? Ans. It stands for the words legum doctor, doctor of laws: the double L marks the plural ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton

... brought in to break a British strike; it cannot amend a Bill to give old-age pensions to 600,000 people. It can thwart a Government in the minute details of its legislation; it cannot touch the whole vast business of finance. It can prevent the abolition of the plural voter; but it could not prevent the abolition of the police. It can refuse a Constitution to Ireland, but not, ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill

... traditional drama, in which pagan elements seem to have mingled with the Herod story, is still performed by the Roumanians during the Christmas festival. It is called in Wallachia "Vicleim" (from Bethlehem), in Moldavia and Transylvania "Irozi" (plural from Irod Herod). At least ten persons figure in it: "Emperor" Herod, an old grumbling monarch who speaks in harsh tones to his followers; an officer and two soldiers in Roman attire; the three Magi, in ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles

... signifying we, more than two, including the speaker and those present; and another including the speaker and persons absent. He will also find personal pronouns in the second and third person, perhaps with singular, dual, and plural forms. ...
— On the Evolution of Language • John Wesley Powell

... 1: The employment of the plural—"in sins"—may be explained by the custom of the Divine Scriptures in the frequent use of the plural for the singular, e.g. "They are dead that sought the life of the child"; or by the fact that ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... hardly would when she came to our camp. She was almost white, and this officer wished to adopt her, but the mother said, "I would do anything but that for oonah," this being a sort of Indian formation of the second-person-plural, such as they sometimes use. This same officer afterwards saw a reward offered for this family in ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... ku,—whence the supposed Indian names, aje, age, niame, igname, used indiscriminately of any edible roots. The African names of the manioc have come from Arabic 'uruq "roots," notably in the Congo languages, y[o]ka, y[e]ke, edioko, plural madioka, whence, as the plant was introduced into America, it was known there as vuca, mandioca. As to sweet potatoes and peanuts, the former were cultivated in Asia before the discovery of America, while the latter, mentioned by Ibn Batutah as an article of food in ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various

... Plural voting, though practiced in vestry elections and those of poor-law guardians, is so unfamiliar in elections to Parliament that it is not likely to be soon or willingly adopted; but as the time will certainly arrive ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill

... 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 sign ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri

... four articles in Khasi; three in the singular, u, (masculine), ka (feminine), and i (diminutive of both genders); and one in the plural for both ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon

... markets. The Africans have no religion, unless Fetishism may be considered such. They use charms to keep off the evil eye, and believe in fortune-tellers. Their church is called Uganga, and the parson Mganga, the plural of which, priests, changes to Waganga. The prefixes, U, M, and Wa, are used uniformly throughout this land from Zanzibar, to denote respectively, U, country or place, M, an individual, and Wa for ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke

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

... not certain changes be made in the house at Munster Court in reference to—well, to a nursery. A room to be baby's own she had called it. She had thus made herself understood, though she had not said the word which seemed to imply a plural number. "But you'll be down at Manor Cross," ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... applied to the legal profession. Consuming professional jealousy finds similar disparaging epithets for fellow-travelers in every walk of life, and every calling has its special insult. The scorn flung into the words homme de loi, homme de lettres, is wanting in the plural form, which may be used without offence; but in Paris every profession, learned or unlearned, has its omega, the individual who brings it down to the level of the lowest class; and the written law has its connecting link with the custom right of the streets. There are ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... though they must always have had symbolical meanings. Further, while we have record of only one oath—which does not mean that there was only one—signs, tokens, and words are nearly always spoken of in the plural; and if the secrets of a Fellowcraft were purely technical—which some of us do not believe—they were at least accompanied and protected by certain signs, tokens, and passwords. From this it is clear that the advent of an Apprentice into the ranks of a Fellow was in fact a degree, ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton

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

... the literary master has the superiority, though he, too, can in effect but say—and often says it in the very phrase—"I can highly recommend." Only usually he uses the word "We," there being some occult virtue in the first person plural which makes it specially fit for critical and royal declarations. I have a small handful of these sea appreciations, signed by various masters, yellowing slowly in my writing-table's left hand drawer, rustling under my reverent touch, like a handful of ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad

... regard to change 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 in ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus

... of Company Interpreter lie in the fact that I once, in company of various other youths of my age, spent a fortnight in and around the Casino at Trouville. Peters of our company knows a long list of nouns taking "x" instead of "s" in the plural, but my knowledge is ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett

... in y, form the plural of nouns, the persons of verbs, participial nouns, past participles, comparatives, and superlatives, by changing y into i, when the y is preceded by a consonant; as, spy, spies; I carry, thou carriest, he carries; carrier, ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham

... commune, met and legislated according to their needs. To be a freeman one had to own property; to "have a stake in the country." Nowadays nearly all the men who have no property can vote, and some that have property cannot. In England, they are doing away with "plural voters." Heretofore it was thought just, when a man owned land in more than one place, that he should have his say in the government of all; but this is now forbidden. The right was never recognized in this country, partly ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various

... 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 given ...
— The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire • James Jennings

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

... 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. S. Grant as in the rest ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin

... was the most uncomfortable Nic had passed. It was hot; there was a chest beneath him which had suddenly developed a hard edge and an awkward corner; the dogs, too, were uneasy, and barked a good deal at the moon. Then some kind of animal in the plural number seemed to be holding a meeting up among the branches of the huge tree under which they encamped, for there were endless squealings and skirmishes about, which woke the boy again and again, to lie ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn

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

... Mr. Francis Galton, Professor Karl Pearson, and Mr. Bernard Shaw are advocating a scheme of state endowment for motherhood. Now you can see for yourself what that would mean. In politics it would mean the establishment of a motherhood suffrage with plural voting based on the size of the family. In the economic sphere it would mean that we shall be supporting our papas and mammas. In art, which must reflect the actualities of life, it would mean almost the elimination of the element of love, since the world is to be a children's world. In other ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky

... 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 ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn

... 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 quite peculiar in taste, delicious; also cake. Then after we went to the restaurant ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey

... (Podere is Italian for master. It is a title of courtesy, and conveys reverence and admiration.) "Pollo is one chicken by itself; when there are enough present to constitute a plural, it ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

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

... custom," said I. "Every one speaks of a bicycle as a wheel, and I shall not introduce the plural into the name of ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton

... then by way of noticing the plural allusion in the speech added: "It was your young lady's look which wounded me the most. And she said something. I don't suppose you'd care to tell me what she said? It wasn't flattering, I'm sure of that, but it was on the tip of her tongue. I admit I'm mildly ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant

... 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 let ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... a title for a business, was a little misleading because of the plural ending of the last word. There was only one consultant, and that was Samson Francis Bending. His speciality was the engineering design of atomic power plants—both the old fashioned heavy-metal kind and the ...
— Damned If You Don't • Gordon Randall Garrett

... Richards, and Dr. Owen Pughe, is a Fairy, a goblin, etc. The plural of Gwyll would be Gwylliaid, or Gwyllion, but this latter word Dr. Pughe defines as ghosts, hobgoblins, etc. Formerly, there was in Merionethshire a red haired family of robbers called Y Gwylliaid Cochion, or Red Fairies, of ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... southward movement when it became evident that the national prosecution against plural marriage was to be pushed to the extreme. January 4, 1883, with the idea of finding an asylum for the Saints in Mexico, Apostle Thatcher traveled from St. David on the San Pedro, to the southeast as far as Corralitos, where some ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock

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

... still seemed to linger upon his palate the flavor of Aunt Eunice's pullets, from which he had been despoiled by his first enforced call upon her ward, and though he had regretfully heard Susanna say "chicken" without the plural "s," he knew that, being himself "company," he would get his full share of the fowl, which he trusted might be a ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond

... note of Philomel from the grove came upon the soul-delighted ear like the sweet breathings of the Eolian harp, or the celestial cadences of that heart-subduing cherub, Stephens; when we set out on our romantic excursion. Reader, you may well start at the introduction of the plural number; but say, what man could abandon his friend to such a dangerous enterprise? or what moralists refuse his services where there was such a probability of there being so much need for them? But we are poor frail ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... 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

... aphides abound, whether in hop-ground, bean-field, or rose-garden, there are lady-birds gathered together, and they are welcomed by the cultivator, if not by the aphis. (Aphis is the singular noun, and aphides its plural form.) But enough of aphis enemies, and now for the friends, which, as well as foes, they owe to the sweet milk—the honey-dew—which they give out. So these friends, you see, are fair-weather friends, interested friends; and among them are several varieties ...
— The Nursery, September 1877, Vol. XXII, No. 3 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various

... was morally and physically present and he gave Sacramental Absolution to all, using the plural, "Ego vos absolvo ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy

... unsettled state of minor grammatical relations in Shakspeare's time," it is possible that he wrote whom as a nominative (Vol. V. p. 393). But the most extraordinary instance is where he makes a nominative plural agree with a verb in the second person singular, (Vol. III. p. 121,) and justifies it by saying that "such disagreements ... are not uncommon in Shakspeare's writings, and those of his contemporaries." The passage reads as follows ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various

... modification of 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 "A Dios, ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith

... Mother," he 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 the circus. It's ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln

... severity. He loved to consort with low people. He not only drank—that might have been forgiven—but he drank in tap-rooms with vulgar drinkers; so said his friends, and so said his enemies. He denied the charge as being made in the plural number, and declared that his only low co-reveller was Roger Scatcherd. With Roger Scatcherd, at any rate, he associated, and became as democratic as Roger was himself. Now the Thornes of Ullathorne were of the very highest order of ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... in the verbs, to all which might explain the active person, how and in what time it acts, if it acts alone or with others: in a word, with the Chinese, the same word is substantive, adjective, verb, singular, plural, masculine, feminine, &c. It is the person who hears who must arrange the circumstances, and guess them. Add to all this, that all the words of this language are reduced to three hundred and a few more; that they are pronounced in so many different ways, that they signify eighty ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... went on board the "Harmony," accompanied by most of our hosts, who lingered long with us. As we got into the boat, the Eskimoes bade us an affectionate good-bye, "Aksunai, aksuse." (Aksunai, Be thou strong, or its plural, Aksuse, Be ye strong, are used both for "How ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe

... this manner, yamukroure. There are phrases in this language that are beyond the ability of a foreigner to pronounce. It has no contractions, and often changes the first and second person of the personal pronoun, and the first and second person plural, by lowering or pitching the voice. The orthography remains the same, though the significations of those words ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... 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

... speak a little English, that they were going with their kings to fight a great battle. When he said kings, we asked him how many kings? He said they were five nation (we could not make him understand the plural 's), and that they all joined to go against two nation. We asked him what made them come up to us? He said, "To makee te great wonder look." Here it is to be observed that all those natives, as also those of Africa when they learn English, always add two e's at the ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... timid that he never had had the audacity to tell the girl at the glove counter that he preferred bronze-green gloves, nor the boldness to show Maria Gerard his poems composed in her honor, in which he now always put the plural "amours," so as to make it rhyme with "toujours," which was an improvement. He never had dared to reply to the glance of the little maid on the second floor; and he was very wrong to be embarrassed, for one morning, as he ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee

... or Lada, and sometimes in the plural Ladir, was the old capital of Drontheim, before Nidaios—the present Drontheim—was founded. Drontheim was originally the name of the country round the firth of the same name, and is not used in the old Sagas ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous

... singular and plural senses of the same word—one people, Israel, and all the people of the earth—in two consecutive sentences. In "the people of the earth," the word people is used precisely as it is in the expression "the people of the United States" in the preamble to the Constitution, and ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... has changed. Boy denotes one lad; boys, two or more lads. This change in the form and meaning of nouns is called Number. The word boy, denoting one thing, is in the Singular Number; and boys, denoting more than one thing, is in the Plural Number. ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg

... 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

... I 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 Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... once more to the passage in Beowulf. It is established, accordingly, that the suspected mistake in the MS. is no mistake at all; that the form hrinde is correct, being a contraction of hrindge or hrindige, plural of the adjective hrindig, which is preserved in our dialects, in the form rindy, to this very day. In direct contradiction of a common popular error that regards our dialectal forms as being, for the most part, "corrupt," it will be found by experience that they are remarkably ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat

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

... When he dies a disputed succession and much fighting are expected. In reference to the term Monomotapa, it is to be remembered that Mono, Moene, Mona, Mana, or Morena, mean simply 'chief', and considerable confusion has arisen from naming different people by making a plural of the chief's name. The names Monomoizes, spelled also Monemuiges and Monomuizes, and Monomotapistas, when applied to these tribes, are exactly the same as if we should call the Scotch the Lord Douglases. Motape was the chief ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... numskull would be incapable of finish or fine style. At Savage we met the missionary barque JOHN WILLIAMS. I tell you it was a great day for Savage Island: the path up the cliffs was crowded with gay islandresses (I like that feminine plural) who wrapped me in their embraces, and picked my pockets of all my tobacco, with a manner which a touch would have made revolting, but as it was, was simply charming, like the Golden Age. One pretty, little, stalwart minx, with a red flower behind her ear, had searched ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the various aspects under which Life appeared to the wise and foolish teachers of humanity. First comes Hafiz, whose well-known lines are quoted beginning with Shab-i-tarik o bim-i-mauj, etc. Hur is the plural of Ahwar, in full Ahwar el-Ayn, a maid whose eyes are intensely white where they should be white, and black elsewhere: hence our silly "Houries." Follows Umar-i-Khayyam, who spiritualized Tasawwof, or Sooffeism, even as the Soofis (Gnostics) spiritualized Moslem Puritanism. ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton

... wives. And when we put aside Plato and the Platonic communities, the first fact to challenge attention is that the communities which established laws relating to sex relations which were opposed to the monogamic family, whether promiscuity, so-called free love; plural marriage, as in Mormonism, or celibacy, as in Harmonism and Shakerism, were all religious communities. In a word, all these experiments which antagonized the monogamic family relation were the result of various interpretations of the Bible and the efforts of ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo

... (e.g., Alford), the word here translated "power" denotes not MIGHT, but GOVERNMENT, COURT, HIERARCHY; and in this sense it was always used by the ecclesiastical writers, whose conception is best rendered by our plural—"powers." See Delrio, Disquisitiones Magicae, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... before acting on the impulse. This, obviously, was what counted in a man as delicacy. If her friend had blurted or bungled he would have said, in his simplicity, "Did we do 'everything to avoid' it when we faced your remarkable marriage?"—quite handsomely of course using the plural, taking his share of the case, by way of a tribute of memory to the telegram she had received from him in Paris after Mr. Verver had despatched to Rome the news of their engagement. That telegram, that ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... quotation; j Unnecessary in the title 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. EXERCISE 100. ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever

... Confusion of Adjectives and Adverbs Improper Forms of Adjectives Errors in Comparison Singular and Plural Adjectives Placing of Adverbs and Adjectives ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood

... old, will please to observe that I have left myself entire freedom as to the sources of what may be said over the teacups. I have not told how many cups are commonly on the board, but by using the plural I have implied that there is at least one other talker or listener beside myself, and for all that appears there may be a dozen. There will be no regulation length to my reports,—no attempt to make out a certain number of pages. I have no contract to fill ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... districts (dzongkhag, singular and plural); Bumthang, Chhukha, Chirang, Daga, Geylegphug, Ha, Lhuntshi, Mongar, Paro, Pemagatsel, Punakha, Samchi, Samdrup Jongkhar, Shemgang, Tashigang, ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... other. Having brought a common vision to bear upon the glories of nature and art which they had beheld, they were spared the little squabbles over matters of aesthetic taste which often are so disastrous to the serenity of a honeymoon. Touchingly they expounded their views in the first person plural. Even Adrian, whom I must confess to have regarded as an unblushing egotist, seldom delivered himself of an egotistical opinion. "We don't despise the Eclectics," said he. And—"We prefer the Lombardic architecture to the purely Venetian," said ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... 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. ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet

... 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 ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

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

... grammaticus is what the French express by the word litterateur. We unfortunately have no corresponding term in English: a man of letters is our awkward periphrasis in the singular, (too apt, as our jest books remind us, to suggest the postman;) whilst in the plural we resort to the Latin word literati. The school which professes to teach grammatica, professes, therefore, the culture of literature in the widest and most liberal extent, and is opposed generically ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... rigid in its adherence to its own accepted principles than formal speech is, which is likely to be influenced by convention or conventional associations. To take an illustration of what I have in mind, the ending -s is the common mark in English of a plural form. For instance, "caps," "maps," "lines," and "places" are plurals, and the corresponding singular forms are "cap," "map," "line," and "place." Consequently, granted the underlying premise, it is a perfectly logical ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott

... She spoke in the plural, for Miss Wheeler, who found the skipper exceedingly bad company, had also risen, and was scrutinising the house with a gaze hardly less eager than his own. A suggestion of the mate that he should wave his handkerchief was promptly ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs

... sheriff's of 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 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832. • Various



Words linked to "Plural" :   packaged goods, brace, knickerbockers, white, scablands, singular, conditions, castanets, home base, secular games, Epsom salts, flats, ice tongs, folks, craps, down, singultus, Islam Nation, bones, drusen, links, civvies, dress whites, widow's weeds, dry cleaners, felicitation, pair of tongs, dregs, foodstuff, eyeglasses, knee pants, jinks, alms, pair of pliers, bikini pants, pantie, backstairs, saltworks, topside, rich people, brethren, step-in, devotion, first principle, gabardine, contretemps, head, sporting goods, knuckles, slip-joint pliers, clews, spectacles, writing, overtone, flinders, home office, secateurs, colors, line, stretch pants, paring, parallel bars, boxcars, cleats, depth, peoples, pruning shears, knucks, jodhpurs, accounts receivable, states' rights, plurality, plus fours, digs, depredation, thinning shears, bathing trunks, underpants, breeches, white goods, britches, Bermuda shorts, suspension point, mouse-tooth forceps, living quarters, superficies, boxers, archeological remains, liquid assets, fancy goods, chain tongs, Stations of the Cross, fire tongs, calisthenics, military headquarters, headquarters, colours, buckskins, shears, dress blues, liabilities, poor people, small stores, trimmings, knockout drops, connection, rabbit ears, assets, hijinks, ABC's, hiccup, flying colors, bath salts, hot pants, plural form, incidental expense, consumer durables, rariora, bellbottom pants, current assets, gallus, HQ, coffee grounds, ancients, crown jewels, knee breeches, Islamic Ummah, word form, togs, specs, firework, short pants, curiosa, title, Jockey shorts, trading operations, high jinx, sweepstakes, channel, odds, Stations, dirty tricks, operations, settlings, bell-bottoms, water wings, regard, rib joint pliers, coal tongs, order, unemployed, trunks, jodhpur breeches, first rudiment, minor expense, goggles, flannel, sundries, fedayeen, communication channel, undies, brass knuckles, callisthenics, waterworks, knuckle duster, grocery, ironworks, Umma, rings, houselights, hustings, scanty, durables, bloomers, boxershorts, soft goods, diggings, descriptor, knickers, underdrawers, snuffers, needlenose pliers, interest, deep pocket, right, locking pliers, tongs, yard goods, central office, high jinks, swaddling bands, workings, residual, plyers, basic



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