MOTTO • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Motto

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/mˈɑtoʊ/ Listen

noun

Motto n. (pl. mottoes)

(Her.) A sentence, phrase, or word, forming part of an heraldic achievment.

A sentence, phrase, or word, prefixed to an essay, discourse, chapter, canto, or the like, suggestive of its subject matter; a short, suggestive expression of a guiding principle; a maxim. "It was the motto of a bishop eminent for his piety and good works,... "Serve God, and be cheerful.""

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Etymology of 'Motto'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Motto" Quotes from Famous Books

... that is a little too bad of you. It is out of my power to help admiring things which are utterly beyond me to describe, and a dinner of such cooking may enlarge the tongue, after all the fine things it has been rolling in. But business is my motto, in the fewest words that may be. You know what I want; you will keep it to yourself, otherwise other people might demand the money. Through very simple channels you will find out whether the fellow thing to ...

— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... discussed the pipe or cigar demanded of them by rigorous custom. Fashion reigns supreme among the gamins of the East as well as among the ladies of the West. Off they went, however, cleaner and fresher than before—tacitly endorsing by their matutinal amusement the motto that has come down from the philosopher of old, and even now reigns supreme from Bermondsey to Belgravia, that "water is a ...

— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies

... been an appropriate motto for the title-page of "The Poems of Pope: enlarged and improved: or The Soul of ...

— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson

... it, is a large six columned weekly paper, handsomely printed and ably edited; it is the leading Democratic paper in that state, and is published at Raleigh, the Capital of the state, Thomas Loring, Esq. Editor and Proprietor. The motto in capitals under the head of the paper is, "THE CONSTITUTION AND THE UNION OF THE STATES—THEY MUST BE PRESERVED." The same Editor and Proprietor, who exhibits such brutality of feeling towards the slaves, by giving the preceding advertisement a conspicuous place in his columns, and taking ...

— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... and operas very elegantly dressed; her confessor permits her to combine the mundane with sanctity. Always in conformity with the Church and with the world, she presents a living image of the present day, which seems to have taken the word "legality" for its motto. The conduct of the marquise shows precisely enough religious devotion to attain under a new Maintenon to the gloomy piety of the last days of Louis XIV., and enough worldliness to adopt the habits of gallantry of the first years of that reign, should ...

— Study of a Woman • Honore de Balzac

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