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noun
Plurality  n.  (pl. pluralities)  
1.
The state of being plural, or consisting of more than one; a number consisting of two or more of the same kind; as, a plurality of worlds; the plurality of a verb.
2.
The greater number; a majority; also, the greatest of several numbers; in elections, the excess of the votes given for one candidate over those given for another, or for any other, candidate. When there are more than two candidates, the one who receives the plurality of votes may have less than a majority. See Majority. "Take the plurality of the world, and they are neither wise nor good."
3.
(Eccl.) See Plurality of benefices, below.
Plurality of benefices (Eccl.), the possession by one clergyman of more than one benefice or living. Each benefice thus held is called a plurality. (Eng.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Plurality" Quotes from Famous Books



... non-existence to existence. All things that exist are created by supreme Intelligence, who is eternal and immutable. From this truth that God must be from all eternity, he advances to deny all multiplicity. A plurality of gods is impossible. With these sublime views,—the unity and eternity and omnipotence of God,—Xenophanes boldly attacked the popular errors of his day. He denounced the transference to the deity of the human form; he inveighed against Homer and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord

... revelation contained in the Vedas. Kabir appears to have held that articulate sound is an expression of the Deity and that every letter, as a constituent of such sound, has a meaning. But these letters are due to Maya: in reality there is no plurality of sound. Ram seems to have been selected as the divine name, because its brevity is an approach to this unity, but true knowledge is to understand the Letterless One, that is the real name or essence of God from which all differentiation of letters has vanished. Apart from ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... decide the question by a plurality of votes: in such a serious matter as the education of a friend's children, he would consult the one skilled person who has had masters, and has works to show as evidences of his skill. This is not himself; for he has never been able to pay the sophists for instructing ...
— Laches • Plato

... dishonorable or unbecoming to do so with more; yet out of our own houses we glory in the one among another: thus we rejoice in the license we take, and the pleasure attending it, more than polygamists. Why is a plurality of wives denied us, when yet it has been granted, and at this day is granted in the whole world about us? What is life with one woman only, but captivity and imprisonment? We however in this place have broken the bolt of this prison, and have rescued ourselves from ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg

... Russian idiom for his poetical productions. These are mostly satires, and evidently bear the stamp of a thorough knowledge of the classics. Besides these he wrote on different subjects of natural philosophy; and translated a selection from the Epistles of Horace, and Fontenelle's work on the plurality of worlds. About the same time, Leont. Magnitzky wrote the first Russian Arithmetic with ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson

... pliant tool, was elected by a plurality vote over Fremont and Fillmore, the candidate of the American party. Fremont carried, with good majorities, all the free States save Indiana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... instructions are sent to all the other governments, which must be implicitly obeyed. In this council, all letters addressed to the governor or director-general are read and debated, and answers agreed upon by a plurality of voices. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... say in that philosophy, the moment we have done our stroke of conduct, however small. For in the view of that philosophy the universe belongs to a plurality of semi-independent forces, each one of which may help or hinder, and be helped or hindered by, the ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James

... chain is unbroken, so Monotheism must have been the first religion. The chain of Polytheism is broken many times. All nations did not acknowledge the existence of many gods. Indeed, no nation of antiquity acknowledged a plurality of supreme gods, while all nations acknowledged a Supreme God, who, with them, was the father of gods and men. So in this way the chain was always broken, never whole. Polytheism then could not, ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 11, November, 1880 • Various

... his seventeen wives, burst out into hearty laughter. In his book, "The City of the Saints," Burton assures us that polygamy was admirably suited for the Mormons, and he gives the religious, physiological and social motives for a plurality of wives then urged by that people. Economy, he tells us, was one of them. "Servants are rare and costly; it is cheaper and more comfortable to marry them. Many converts are attracted by the prospect of becoming wives, especially from places like Clifton, near Bristol, ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... against his tyranny—his exorbitant tithing system—a mere refusal to render tribute unto him; not at all a disavowal of the Morman religion or of polygamy. But as bond after bond has burst, this last, strongest and tightest one of plurality of wives is beginning to snap asunder. To illustrate: One man, a noble, loving, beautiful spirit—nothing of the tyrant, nothing of the sensualist—with four lovely wives, three of whom I have seen, and in the homes of two of whom I have broken bread, with thirteen loved and ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... government? For, 1. Who should tyrannize, what persons, what ruling assemblies? Not the ministers; for, hitherto they have given no just cause of any suspicion, since this government was in hand: and they are counterpoised in all assemblies with a plurality of ruling elders, it being already studiously[3] provided that there be always two ruling elders to one minister: if there be still two to one, how should they tyrannize if they would? Neither ministers nor ruling elders are likely to tyrannize, if due care be taken by them, whom ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London

... circumstances which are not very well known. As I before observed, Napoleon had no objection to marriage, because he required men for his army; and because he required men, and not women, he thought very poorly of a married couple who produced a plurality of girls. If, on the contrary, a woman presented her husband with six or seven boys, if he was an officer in the army, he was certain of a pension for life. Now, as my mother had commenced with a boy, and it is well known that there is every chance ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat

... breach which did not owe its beginnings to any offence. And it would seem, that till we have reduced mankind to the state of a family, or found some external consideration to maintain their connection in greater numbers, they will be for ever separated into bands, and form a plurality ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.

... nothing wanting to their conversion but one who understands their language well, to explain to them the mysteries of religion; for, as to the moral part of Christianity, they understand it, and do assent to it. They abhor adultery, and do not approve of a plurality of wives. Theft is a thing not known among the Creek Indians; though frequent, and even honorable among the Uchees. Murder they look on as a most abominable crime: but do not esteem the killing of an enemy, or one that has injured them, murder. The passion of revenge, which they call ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris

... turn." In one moment the affair turned according to the desires of M. le Duc d'Orleans. The power of the council of the regency and its composition fell. The choice of the council was awarded to M. le Duc d'Orleans, with all the authority of the regency, and to the plurality of the votes of the council, the decision of affairs, the vote of the Regent to be counted as two in the event of an equal division. Thus all favours and all punishments remained in the hands of M. le Duc d'Orleans alone. The acclamation was such that the Duc du Maine ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... A plurality of wives is required by a good hunter, since in the labors of the chase women are of great service to their husbands. An Indian with one wife can not amass property, as she is constantly occupied in household labors, and has no time for preparing skins ...
— Siouan Sociology • James Owen Dorsey

... traced in their views and pretensions, and though we would despise mean and base suspicion, there is a degree of jealousy which is absolutely necessary in this degenerate state of mankind, and is indeed at all times to be considered as a political virtue. It is in your power also to prevent a plurality of places incompatible with each other being vested in the same persons. This our patriots have loudly and very justly complained of in time past, and it will be an everlasting disgrace to them if they suffer the practice to continue. Care I am informed is ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams

... happiness to misery, is brought about." It is evident, therefore, that he, like all the moderns, understood by action something merely that takes place. This action, according to him, must have beginning, middle, and end, and consequently consist of a plurality of connected events. But where are the limits of this plurality? Is not the concatenation of causes and effects, backwards and forwards, without end? and may we then, with equal propriety, begin and break off wherever we please? In this province, can there be either beginning or end, corresponding ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... poems. In maintaining the authenticity and personality of their one author, be he Homer or Melesigenes, quocunque nomine vocari eum jus fasque sit, I feel conscious that, while the whole weight of historical evidence is against the hypothesis which would assign these great works to a plurality of authors, the most powerful internal evidence, and that which springs from the deepest and most immediate impulse of the soul, also speaks ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... Angel.... This fine young Creature I shall call Euphrosine." The suspiciously representative character of these assistants may well make us doubt their actuality; and from the style of the lucubrations, at least, no evidence of a plurality of authors can readily be perceived. Indeed after the first few numbers we hear nothing more of them. "Mira" was the pseudonym used by Mrs. Haywood in "The Wife" (1756), while a periodical called "The Young Lady" began to appear ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher

... that, when we have a great thing to say, we are always compelled to speak so simply in monosyllables? Perhaps this, too, is an example of the law that continually reduces many to one,—the unity giving the substance of the plurality; but as the heroes of the "Iliad" were obliged to repeat the messages of the gods literatim, so we must say a great thing as it comes to us, by itself. It is curious to me now, that I was not the least excited in announcing the discovery,—not because ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... when he was elected for the 1st Arrondissement of Paris, and was thereupon appointed Minister of War, or in Communal phraseology, Delegate at the War Department. He seems to have been one of those beings, without country or family, but who are blessed, by way of compensation, with a plurality of names; we do not know whether Cluseret was really his own, or how many aliases he ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton

... required. It was probably found that an 'informality' had occurred in certain communes, and that through this 2,494 votes must be annulled. News of this discovery was instantly sent to the Parisian newspapers. As it was supposed that they would give M. Joffrin a plurality of the votes to be recognised, sundry newspapers actually printed the name of M. Joffrin at the head of the list of candidates in the place usually accorded by a really enlightened press to the elect of universal suffrage. Unfortunately the official calculator is not of the blood of Bidder. ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... itself, and has, therefore, power to choose its own ministers and to make such regulations as it deems to be most in accordance with the purpose of its existence, that is, the advancement of the kingdom of Christ. A comparatively small section of the denomination maintain that a "plurality of elders" or pastors is required for the complete organization of every separate church. This is the distinctive peculiarity of those churches in Scotland and the north of England which are known as Scotch Baptists. The largest church of this section, consisting of approximately 500 members, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... actions to the common benefit." He continues: "The only way to erect such a common power ... is to confer all their power and strength upon one man or upon one assembly of men, that may reduce all their wills by plurality of voices unto one will: which is as much as to say, to appoint one man or assembly of men to bear their person; and every one to own, and to acknowledge himself to be the author of, whatsoever he that ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

... helpers, in their courting human aid. The personification of Israel as a woman, which took place in the preceding verses, is here continued. She leaves no means untried to heighten her charms; she makes every effort to please the mighty kings. The king is an ideal person comprehending a real plurality within himself A parallel passage, in which the seeking for help among foreign nations is represented under the same image, is Ezek. xvi. 26 ff., comp. Hos. xii. 2 (1). It occurs also in immediate connexion with seeking help from ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg

... expenses of the two most celebrated actors, Athenodorus and Thessalus, the former performing for Pasicrates, and the latter for Nicocreon. Thessalus was most favored by Alexander, though it did not appear till Athenodorus was declared victor by the plurality of votes. For then at his going away, he said the judges deserved to be commended for what they had done, but that he would willingly have lost part of his kingdom, rather than to have seen Thessalus overcome. However, when he understood Athenodorus was fined by the Athenians for ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... excited, was accustomed to use strong language, and, moreover, to make use of a plurality of epithets, some of which were of a figurative kind, as the word peacock, and furthermore the allusion to Nicholas's nose, which was not intended to be taken in its literal sense, but rather to bear a latitude of construction according to the fancy ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... with beautiful things and beautiful thoughts tend to develop in us that healthy kind of asceticism so requisite to every workable scheme of greater happiness for the individual and the plurality: self-restraint, choice of aims, consistent and thorough-paced subordination of the lesser interest to the greater; above all, what sums up asceticism as an efficacious means towards happiness, preference of the spiritual, the unconditional, ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee

... be easier, and more reasonable, to believe in a plurality of gods, than that one God should be capable of such conflicting counsels. And this would bring us to the ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson

... votes cast in an election, a majority is more than half the total; a plurality is the excess of one candidate's votes over another's. Commonly the votes compared are those for the successful candidate and those for his ...
— Write It Right - A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults • Ambrose Bierce

... the feather argument is advanced, which seeks to show that as each wing is made up of a plurality of feathers, overlapping each other, they form a sort of a valved surface, opening so as to permit air to pass through them during the period of their upward movement, and closing ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***

... manifested through the usual place of incision made for the ligature of the brachial vessel. Or, lastly, there may be found more arteries than the single main brachial appearing at this place in the arm, and such condition of a plurality of vessels occurs in consequence of a high division of the brachial artery. Each of these variations from the normal type is more or less frequent; and though it certainly is of practical import to bear them in mind, still, as we never can foretell their occurrence by a superficial ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise

... the two adjoining Rectories of Deane and Steventon in Hampshire; the former purchased for him by his generous uncle Francis, the latter given by his cousin Mr. Knight. This was no very gross case of plurality, according to the ideas of that time, for the two villages were little more than a mile apart, and their united populations scarcely amounted to three hundred. In the same year he married Cassandra, youngest daughter of the Rev. Thomas ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh

... familiar domesticated varieties of grain, of fowls, and of other animals, were pictured and mummified by the old Egyptians more than half that number of years ago, if not earlier. Indeed, perhaps the strongest argument for the original plurality of human species was drawn from the identification of some of the present races of men upon these early historical monuments ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... while the Pope bestowed upon Francis I. and his successors the right of presentation to the bishoprics and abbacies in his dominions. The work of reform, which should have claimed special attention at the Lateran Council, was never undertaken seriously. Some decrees were passed prohibiting plurality of benefices, forbidding officials of the Curia to demand more than the regulation fees, recommending preaching and religious instruction of children, regulating the appointment to benefices, etc., but these ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... follows, however, on the passages Simon is going to bring forward, such as the mention of a plurality of gods, and God's hardening men's hearts, Peter states that in reality all the passages which speak against God are spurious additions, but this is to be guarded ...
— Simon Magus • George Robert Stow Mead

... him—still further pondering, I say, I saw that this situation of mine was the precise situation of every mortal that breathes; only, in most cases, he, one way or other, has this Siamese connexion with a plurality of other mortals. If your banker breaks, you snap; if your apothecary by mistake sends you poison in your pills, you die. True, you may say that, by exceeding caution, you may possibly escape these and the multitudinous other evil chances of life. But handle Queequeg's monkey-rope heedfully ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... the character of a saint was applied to that of a hero, the Christian faith was preached and established from the Euphrates to the shores of the Caspian, and Armenia was attached to the empire by the double ties of policy and religion. But as many of the Armenian nobles still refused to abandon the plurality of their gods and of their wives, the public tranquillity was disturbed by a discontented faction, which insulted the feeble age of their sovereign, and impatiently expected the hour of his death. He died at length after a reign ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... a plurality of venereal poisons, and has divided the disease into four classes, from their different primary and secondary symptoms; making the eruptions on the skin the most certain criterion of distinguishing them from each other. These classes are:—the papular venereal disease; the pustular; The phagedenic; ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... MAJORITY, PLURALITY.—A majority is more than half the whole number; a plurality is the excess of votes given for one candidate over those given for another, and is not necessarily a majority when there are more ...
— Practical Exercises in English • Huber Gray Buehler

... in nearly every case only a plurality (this is true also of most of those elected in Milwaukee), and local or temporary issues existed in many instances, which caused the Socialist Party to be used largely for purposes of protest, a part of the vote was undoubtedly cast for a type of municipal reform somewhat more radical than other ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... have only one tail apiece,' said Merton, 'in spite of the proverb "as proud as a dog with two tails," and a plurality of heads is unusual even ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang

... home and in time of peace they exercise very little dominion, and have but a very moderate sovereignty, the resolutions of peace and war being ordinarily either in the people, or in a council. Tho' the war itself, which admits not of plurality of governors, naturally devolves the command into the king's sole authority. Sec. 109. And thus in Israel itself, the chief business of their judges, and first kings, seems to have been to be captains ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke

... are one God, not three Gods. The principle of this union is absence of difference[10]: difference cannot be avoided by those who add to or take from the Unity, as for instance the Arians, who, by graduating the Trinity according to merit, break it up and convert it to Plurality. For the essence of plurality is otherness; apart from otherness plurality is unintelligible. In fact, the difference between three or more things lies in genus or species or number. Difference is the necessary correlative of sameness. Sameness is predicated in three ways: By ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius

... of the ancient poets never go beyond the range of polytheism, yet they show how far intrinsic morality and truth were developed, even by the imaginative and mythical faculty of the human mind, during the gradual historical evolution of the race. The plurality of gods appears to be the manifestation of the divine principle; their action on the world lost almost all trace of arbitrary power and of their former versatility and caprice. The superstition of polytheism remained, but it had an inward ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli

... Commons ROBERT CECIL, interposing in ordered business of Supply, moves adjournment with view of calling attention to "growing danger created in Ireland by existence of volunteer forces and failure of Government to deal with situation." It is plurality of situation that disturbs philosophical mind. As long as there was but one volunteer force, its locality confined to Ulster, its purpose to defeat Home Rule Bill, its commander-in-chief CARSON, it was well. Nay more, it was patriotic. But when Ulster's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 24, 1914 • Various

... guarded by spirits, the di penates, who together with Vesta represent the material vitality of the family; these spirits, always conceived and expressed in the plural, form a group in a way which is characteristic of the Latins, and their plurality is perhaps due to the variety and frequent change of the material of the store. The religious character of the store is also well shown by the fact, if such it be, that no impure person was allowed to meddle with it; the duty ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler

... because if it were so then it would be possible for the same thing to have been taken away from and added to the same person: but this is really not possible, the Just and the Unjust always implying a plurality of persons. ...
— Ethics • Aristotle

... daughter of the late king, and thus, in the eyes of his Persian subjects, confirmed his title to the throne. His father, Philip, was a polygamist in practice, although it would be very difficult to prove that the Macedonians in general were allowed a plurality of wives; but Alexander was now the King of Kings, and is more likely to have been guided by Persian than Greek opinions upon the subject. Eighty of his principal officers followed his example, and were united to the daughters of the chief nobility ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 380, July 11, 1829 • Various

... proceedings, later annoyed his sisters by intimating that he would not be present at the dance. Martie and Sally did not want him for any social qualities he possessed, but he was a male; he would at least help to offset the alarming plurality of females. ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris

... from rays reflected by matter not endowed with life. But this hope has not been realized, nor does it seem possible to realize it. The astronomer cannot afford to waste his energies on hopeless speculation about matters of which he cannot learn anything, and he therefore leaves this question of the plurality of worlds to others who are as competent to discuss it as he is. All he ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb

... the difficult cases of a plurality of wives," resumed Father Antioche, "there is generally a willingness in the cultivators to maintain liberally those ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau

... people have a perfect knowledge of it; that being confined chiefly to their priests, who are pretty numerous. They do not seem to pay respect to one god, as possessing pre-eminence; but believe in a plurality of divinities, who are all very powerful; and in this case, as different parts of the island, and the other islands in the neighbourhood, have different ones, the inhabitants of each, no doubt, think that they have chosen the most eminent, or, at least, one who ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... outer door. Out of the drab recesses leaped dusky shadows. There seemed to be a large number of jostling men; perhaps only three or four were at hand by actual count; the insufficient lighting and their shocking and determined appearance lent them plurality. ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... the court-house of the town; the electors are the gobernadorcillo whose office is about to expire, and twelve of the oldest headmen, cabezas de barangay, collectors of tribute for the gobernadorcillo they must select, by a plurality of votes, three individuals, who must be able to speak, read, and write the Spanish language. The voting is done by ballot, in the presence of the notary (escribano), and the chief of the province, who presides. ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... president elected by parliament for a five-year term (eligible for a second term); election last held 8 February 2005 (next to be held by February 2010); according to the Greek Constitution, presidents may only serve two terms; president appoints leader of the party securing plurality of vote in election to become prime minister and form a government election results: Karolos PAPOULIAS elected president; number of parlimentary votes, 279 out ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... Ministers chosen by the president on the advice of the chancellor elections: president elected by direct popular vote for a six-year term; presidential election last held 19 April 1998 (next to be held in the spring of 2004); chancellor traditionally chosen by the president from the plurality party in the National Council; vice chancellor chosen by the president on the advice of the chancellor note: government coalition - OeVP and FPOe election results: Thomas KLESTIL reelected president; percent of vote - Thomas KLESTIL 63%, Gertraud KNOLL ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... smartly on his back, With reprimand severe. Fellow, he said, Sit still; hear others; thy superiors hear. For who art thou? A dastard and a drone, Of none account in council, or in arms. 240 By no means may we all alike bear sway At Ilium; such plurality of Kings Were evil. One suffices. One, to whom The son of politic Saturn hath assign'd The sceptre, and inforcement of the laws, 245 That he may rule us as a monarch ought.[8] With such authority the troubled host He sway'd; they, quitting camp and fleet again Rush'd back to council; ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... broad-brimmed hats. Gourlay raised his in answer to their nod. But the moment after, and in their hearing, he yelled blatantly to Swipey Broon to come on and have a drink of beer. Swipey was a sweep now, for Brown the ragman had added chimney-cleaning to his other occupations—plurality of professions, you observe, being one of the features of the life of Barbie. When Swipey turned out of the Fleckie Road he was as black as the ace of spades, a most disreputable phiz. And when Gourlay yelled his loud welcome to that grimy object, what ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... not assist in attaining its object as a language. One universal way of forming the plural, past tense, or comparative expresses plurality, past time, or comparison just as well as fifteen ways, and with a ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark

... queen of Hungary, but it seems not to have raised much alarm. The German princes were afraid of new broils. To contest the election of an emperour, once invested and acknowledged, would be to overthrow the whole Germanick constitution. Perhaps no election by plurality of suffrages was ever made among human beings, to which it might not be objected, that voices were procured by ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... showed himself to be a serious man, and because he had wit he showed himself an amusing serious man, which is rare. His Dialogues of the Dead were very humorous and, at the same time, in many passages profound; he wrote his Discourses on the Plurality of (Habitable) Worlds; then because he was perpetual secretary of the Academy of Sciences, came his charming and often astonishing Eulogies of Sages, which ought to be regarded as the best existent history ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet

... how many smiles ought the same person to have?" cried Florence, impatiently. But that which instantly answered her said forcibly, that a plurality of them ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell

... are not prohibited from having a plurality of wives; the first manages the domestic concerns, and is the most respected." (Timk. II. 310.) Naturally Polygamy is not so general among the Mongols as when Asia lay at their feet. The Buraets, who seem to retain the old Mongol customs in great completeness, are polygamists, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... This plurality of swains did not lessen as the afternoon advanced, for not one of the diners departed, and when tea-time had come, their ranks were swelled by a dozen new arrivals, giving both Mrs. Meredith and Janice all they could ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... openly inculcated are reported by Gennadius, who condemned it to the flames, but who has not thought proper to enter into the manner of his arguments. The extravagance of this new legislator appeared, above all, in the articles which concerned religion. He acknowledges a plurality of gods: some superior, whom he placed above the heavens; and the others inferior, on this side the heavens. The first existing from the remotest antiquity; the others younger, and of different ages. He gave a king to all these gods, and he called him [Greek: ZEUS], or Jupiter; ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... said Bonaparte, after the ceremony, "hereafter we must drop the first person singular I and assume the dignity of the editorial WE. Emperors and editors alike are entitled to the distinction. It's a sign of plurality which is often quite as effective as a majority. Furthermore, you and We can do it logically, for we are several persons all at once, what with the assortment of thrones that we have acquired in the second-hand shops of the earth, all of which ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs

... appointed by the prime minister elections: president elected by popular vote for a five-year term (eligible for a second term); election last held 19 February 2008 (next to be held February 2013); prime minister appointed by the president based on majority or plurality support in parliament; the prime minister and Council of Ministers must resign if the National Assembly refuses to accept their program election results: Serzh SARGSIAN elected president; percent of vote - Serzh SARGSIAN 52.9%, Levon TER-PETROSSIAN ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... individualities in its unity; secondly, when the individual rises to the ideal of his species by the perfecting of himself. Reason demands unity, conformity to the species; nature, on the other hand, demands plurality and individuality; and man is at once solicited by two contrary laws. In this conflict, aesthetic education must come in to effect the reconciliation of the two principles; for, according to Schiller, it has as its end to fashion and polish ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... loss to the whigs of this seat, the Douglas democrats were in a minority. Lincoln had a plurality but not a majority. The balance of power was held by five anti-Nebraska democrats, who would not under any circumstances vote for Lincoln or any other whig. Their candidate was Lyman Trumbull. After ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham

... brink of the sewers—shores I mean—of eternity; behold his crushed and crownless hat—his hollow eyes—his rheumy visage—look at that petition penned on his breast. Poh! 'tis a surveyor's notice to pull down. But, then, look at that plurality parson with rotund prominence of portico, and red brick cheeks of vast extent, and that high, steeple-crowned hat—look at the smug, mean, insignificant dwarf of a meeting-house, sinking up to its knees in a narrow lane, and looking ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 385, Saturday, August 15, 1829. • Various

... earliest days there was a single officer at the head of a congregation, or a plurality of officers of equal authority, it is impossible to say with assurance. The few references which we have look in the latter direction (cf., for instance, Acts vi.; Phil. i. 1; 1 Clement 42, 44; Did. 14), but we are not justified in asserting that they represent the universal custom. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... many earths inhabited by men from which spirits and angels come; for everyone there who desires from a love of truth and of use to do so is permitted to talk with spirits of other earths, and thus be assured that there is a plurality of worlds, and learn that the human race is not from one earth alone, but from innumerable earths. I have frequently talked about this with spirits of our earth, and was told that any intelligent person ought to know from many ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg

... after one of the most sweeping triumphs ever known in Presidential elections. Factional war in the Republican Party had given him 435 electoral votes in the preceding November, to Roosevelt's 88 and Taft's 8; and though he was a "minority President," he had had a popular plurality of more than 2,000,000 over Roosevelt ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan

... impetus, because no image borrowed from the physical world can give more nearly the idea of it. But it is only an image. In reality, life is of the psychological order, and it is of the essence of the psychical to enfold a confused plurality of interpenetrating terms. In space, and in space only, is distinct multiplicity possible: a point is absolutely external to another point. But pure and empty unity, also, is met with only in space; it is that of a mathematical point. Abstract unity and abstract multiplicity are determinations ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson

... are almost always brothers, is their unique remedy for the hardships of their lot, so lowly and yet (topographically) so elevated. Among their Mohammedan and Hindu compatriots the "twin barbarism" of a plurality of wives appears to be confined in practice to a few of the powerful and wealthy. Until within the last few years its repulsive features were wont to be brought into more hideous relief by the cruel custom of suttee, or widow-burning. It is only within half a generation past that British interference ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various

... The plurality of worlds,—the indefinite immensity of the universe, is a most awful subject of contemplation. He who rightly feels its mystery and grandeur is in no danger of seduction from the falsehoods of religious systems, or of deifying the principle of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... the scale of the Stadtholder. This is the fatal coalition which governs without obstacle in Zealand, Friesland, and Guelderland, which constitutes the States of Utrecht, at Amersfort, and, with their aid, the plurality in the States General. The States of Holland, Groningen and Overyssel vote, as yet, in the opposition. But the coalition gains ground in the States of Holland, and has been prevalent in the Council of Amsterdam. If its progress be not stopped by a little moderation in the Democrats, ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson

... singularities, promised, besides his version of these two already published, very speedily to offer up unto this Isle of Britain the virginity of the translation of the other three most admirable books of the aforesaid author; provided that by the plurality of judicious and understanding men it be not declared he hath already proceeded too far, or that the continuation of the rigour whereby he is dispossessed of all his both real and personal estate, by pressing too hard upon him, be not an impediment ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... his Secretary of the Treasury, and, largely through that great Free Trader's exertions, secured a repeal by Congress of the Protective Tariff of 1842 and the enactment of the ruinous Free Trade Tariff of 1846. Had Clay carried New York, his election was secure. As it happened, Polk had a plurality in New York of but 5,106 in an immense vote, and that slim plurality was given to him by the Abolitionists throwing away some 15,000 on Birney. And thus also it curiously happened that it was the Abolition vote which secured the election of the candidate who favored immediate annexation and ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... Where a plurality of gods is believed in, these gods must stand in some relation to each other; and it is of importance to notice how the gods of the Veda are arranged. We can see here very clearly how unstable a thing polytheism is. The position of the gods is constantly ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies

... balloted by the rest of the electors, attains not to the better half of the suffrages in the affirmative, the first elector shall continue nominating others, till one of them so nominated by him attains to the plurality of the suffrages in the affirmative, and be written first competitor to the first office. This done, the second elector shall observe in his turn the like order; and so the rest of the electors, naming competitors each to his ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington

... for England. We were told, on the banks of the Hawkesbury, that all the men there, and inland, had two wives. Cole-be, Bennillong's friend, had two female companions; and we found, indeed, more instances of plurality of wives than of monogamy. I do not recollect ever noticing children by both; and observed, that in general, as might be expected, the two women were always jealous of and quarrelling with each other. ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... where he sat gazing on her as before. When she saw him she came out to him and said, 'By Allah thou movest me to pity! wilt thou enter my faith that I may marry thee?' He cried, 'Allah forbid that I should put off the faith of Unity and enter that of Plurality!'[FN208] Quoth she, 'Come in with me to my house and take thy will of me and wend thy ways in peace.' Quoth he, 'Not so, I will not waste the worship of twelve years for the lust of an eye-twinkle.' Said she, 'Then depart from me forthwith;' and he said, 'My heart will not suffer me to do that;' ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... and not more than twenty-five out of each lot got stuck in his own pocket. The balance all went for actual votes, and on a day of Democratic landslides they elected "Scotty" Doyle, the ex-tenpin setter, by nearly a thousand plurality—and beginning at five o'clock in the afternoon, and ending at three the next morning, Jurgis treated himself to a most unholy and horrible "jag." Nearly every one else in Packingtown did the same, however, for there was universal exultation over this triumph of popular government, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... If there were such a thing as a plurality or a series of completions, there would, of course, be such a thing as the final completion; but, as every completion is final, to talk about a final completion is as absurd as it would be to talk ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)

... of indulging in a plurality of wives, as adopted by many of the mountaineers, never received the sanction, in thought, word or action, of Kit Carson. His moral character may well be held up as an example to men whose pretensions to virtuous life are greater. Although he was continually surrounded by licentiousness he proved ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... Caesar. It was now made to arise from the very constitution of the office, and the mode of the appointment. To defend the empire, it was the opinion of Dioclesian that a single emperor was not sufficient. And it struck him, at the same time, that by the very institution of a plurality of emperors, which was now destined to secure the integrity of the empire, ample provision might be made for the personal security of each emperor. He carried his plan into immediate execution, by appointing an associate to ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... be an instinct of fact. The Rabbis taught a threefold division—nephesh, the animal, ruah, the human, and neshamah, the divine soul, which corresponds to that of Plato into thumos, epithumia, and nous. And even Saint Paul seems to have recognized such inherent plurality when he distinguishes between the bodily soul, the intellectual soul, and the spiritual gift, in his Epistle to the Romans. No such refinements of course as these are to be expected among the red men; but it may be looked upon either as the rudiments ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton

... not confined to members of the family of Levi, but was recruited from all the tribes; it levied a tithe on the harvest, reserved to itself the pick of the offerings and victims, and jealously forbade a plurality of sanctuaries,** The Book of the Covenant*** has handed down to us the regulations in force at one of these temples, perhaps that of Bethel, one of the wealthiest of ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... what pertains to Christ's unity in common. For, in their proper place, we must consider what pertains to unity and plurality in detail: thus we concluded (Q. 9) that there is not only one knowledge in Christ, and it will be concluded hereafter (Q. 35, A. 2) that there is not ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... that there may not have been various individuals who have passed through life without ever making this idea a distinct object of apprehension; and, in truth, they who think they have an idea of a plurality of Gods, have no idea of God whatever." This seems explicit as negativing the charge of holding the doctrine of innate ideas; but in the Edinburgh Review several passages are given, amongst which is the following:—"By ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts

... Carries the burdens, might reply that instinct Regulates that. So instinct proves too much. Queens and great heiresses are privileged To intimate their matrimonial choice,— Simply because superiority In power or riches gives an apt excuse: Let a plurality of women have The wealth and power, and you might see reversed What now you call an instinct. When a higher Civilization shall make woman less Dependent for protection and support On man's caprice or pleasure, there may be A higher sort of woman; one who shall Feel ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent

... I think there is no reason to believe that the number of these bore any considerable proportion to the body of the Christian church; and, amidst the disputes which such opinions necessarily occasioned, it is a great satisfaction to perceive what, in a vast plurality of instances, we do perceive, all sides recurring to the ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley

... principle of irregularity and disorder, of necessity and chance, which is only partially impressed by mathematical laws and figures. (We may observe by the way, that the principle of the other, which is the principle of plurality and variation in the Timaeus, has nothing in common with the 'other' of the Sophist, which is the principle of determination.) The element of the same dominates to a certain extent over the other—the ...
— Timaeus • Plato

... which can be proved?" I cannot answer for him, but I can answer for men in general. Let him read Sir David Brewster's "More Worlds than One;"—this principle, which is so shocking to my assailant, is precisely the argument of Sir David's book; he tells us that the plurality of worlds cannot be proved, but will be received by religious men. He asks, p. 229, "If the stars are not suns, for what conceivable purpose were they created?" and then he lays down dogmatically, p. 254, "There is no opinion, out of the region of pure demonstration, more ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman

... has given to every man but one mind, one heart, one will. Property, granting to one individual a plurality of votes, supposes him to have ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... perhaps, impossible at this late date to estimate the effect of Starr King's appeal to the voters of California in the presidential election of 1860. As we have already noted, Lincoln carried the State by a very narrow plurality, and we need not ascribe the swaying of many votes to the eloquence of King's advocacy to make it appear that his influence was marked in ...
— Starr King in California • William Day Simonds

... so wide a field is granted to our friendship, and though it may reveal itself under a plurality of aspects to those who seek it, strange to say, the world knows very little about it. We speak of it as of some regretted treasure that has been long lost to humanity. We are half convinced that the lightning speed of modern civilization has ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... observe that the election of any one of our fellow-citizens to the office of President does not of itself afford just cause for dissolving the Union. This is more especially true if his election has been effected by a mere plurality, and not a majority of the people, and has resulted from transient and temporary causes, which may probably never again occur. In order to justify a resort to revolutionary resistance, the Federal Government must be guilty of "a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan

... certainly no law of our nature which makes a dark color repugnant to our feelings. We admire the swarthy beauties of Spain; and the finest forms of statuary are often preferred in bronze. If the whole world were allowed to vote on the question, there would probably be a plurality in favor of complexions decidedly dark. Every body knows how much the Africans were amused at the sight of Mungo Park, and what an ugly misfortune they considered his pale color, ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child

... recently ('Plurality of Races,' Eng. Translat., 1864, p. 83, &c.) insisted that variation under domestication throws no light on the natural modification of species. I cannot perceive the force of his arguments, or, to speak more accurately, of his assertions to ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin

... throw aside all regard for decorum;—she seemed utterly to despise all sense of shame, and even to glory in a life of continual dissolution;—the company she kept of both sexes, were, for the most part, persons of abandoned characters: whether she indulged herself in a plurality of amours, is uncertain, though it was said she did so; but there was one man to whom she was most particularly attached;—this was a person who had formerly enjoyed a post under the government, but was turned out on the score of misbehaviour, ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... all belonged to the new religion, and were amongst the most devoted to the sect; there was not a moment to lose, "for they were men of wits, great reputation, and circumspection. The governor was very vexed at not having been able to prevent their election and departure; but plurality of votes had carried the day against him." This despatch was "no sooner received than some men were got ready to go and meet those deputies, in order to put them in a place where they would never have been ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government. It will be no alleviation that these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands, and not by a single one. One hundred and seventy-three despots would surely be as oppressive as one. Let those who doubt it turn their eyes on the Republic of Venice. As little will it avail us that they are chosen by ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson

... which must be described in technical language will be clear to all who think. It is probable that at least a fourth of the voters in West Virginia, one of the recent suffrage campaign states, could not define the following words intelligently: constitution, amendment, franchise, suffrage, majority, plurality. It is probable they would succeed even less well at an attempt to give an account of the Declaration of Independence, the Revolution, Taxation without Representation, the will of the majority, popular government. Such men might make ...
— Woman Suffrage By Federal Constitutional Amendment • Various

... principle of submission, as applicable to the people of the North in our present emergency. In accordance with the plan adopted by the founders of our Government, and practically illustrated in the election of George Washington and his successors, the people by a plurality of votes elected to office and placed at the head of our political system as its highest authority and ruler, the present Chief Magistrate. From the day of his acknowledged election, party politics settled into the calm of acquiescence, and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... only certain districts of which— those nearest the cities—returns have been heard. If the present proportionate division of the rural vote is maintained for the total, Philput will be elected by a plurality of three hundred votes. Philput asserts that the proportions will hold. Wilkins points out, however, that he is relatively stronger in the more remote districts and predicts that he will have a plurality ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... observed—many deviated grievously from the right path. In Nain, Nathaniel, a baptized Esquimaux, had taken a baptized woman for a second wife and had gone with her to the heathen, with whom a plurality of wives is very common, and is considered as a mark of superiority; he being considered a great man who possesses two or three wives, and as soon as any one possesses a European boat he is, according to the opinion of the country, in circumstances ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous

... and other animals. When this anger abates, they suppose that every thing is restored to its natural order; and it should seem that they have a great reliance on the efficacy of their endeavours to appease their offended divinity. They also admit a plurality of deities, though all inferior to Kallafootonga. Amongst them, they mention Toofooa-boolootoo, god of the clouds and fog; Talleteboo, and some others, residing in the heavens. The first in rank and power, who has the government of the sea, and its productions., is called ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr

... away and all withdrawn but the Register, The Court maturely Weighed and Considered the Evidences and Cases of the Prisoners and by a Plurality of Voices found the sd William Phillips Guilty of the Pyracies, Robberies and Felonys Exhibited against him, and by an unanimous voice found the sd. Isaac Lassen, Henry Gyles, Charles Ivemay, John Bootman, John Coombes and Henry Payne ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various

... 1901, the vote for governor, lieutenant-governor, secretary, treasurer, comptroller, and attorney-general was changed from a majority to a plurality vote, the Assembly to decide between candidates, if at any time two or more should receive "an equal and the ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

... Henry More; and in Cudsworth and Hume it ranks as the most rational theory of immortality. Glanvil's Lux Orientalis devotes a curious treatise to it. It captivated the minds of Fourier and Leroux. Andre Pezzani's book on The Plurality of the Soul's Lives works out the system on the Roman Catholic idea of expiation."—E.D. WALKER, in "Re-Incarnation, ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... utmost exertions to insure success. On opening the ballots in the senate chamber, it appeared that the unanimous suffrage of his country had been once more conferred on General Washington, and that Mr. Adams had received a plurality of the votes. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall

... Representatives, when a deliberate effort was made by the federal party to elect a man as president of the United States, who had not received a single vote in the electoral colleges for that office, over Jefferson, who had received a plurality of votes for president. The painful excitement of that scene, which lasted continuously day and night, and during which sick members were brought in beds to the House and kept there, Tazewell never forgot; nor do I think the events of that day made a favorable impression on his mind ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby

... apprehensions as to New York had been unwarranted. Still his words came back to me often during the heat of the summer and the fierce contest. "I cannot carry New York; we shall lose it, perhaps by just a little—but we shall lose it;" and so we did. As the vote was counted the plurality of Mr. Cleveland over Mr. Blaine in the decisive State was one thousand and forty-seven. Gail Hamilton says, in her "Life of Blaine," of the New York election, that there was a plurality claimed on election day for Cleveland ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various

... of the unity or plurality of creations; it is not less the question of the origin of animals from single pairs or in large numbers; and, strange to say, a thorough examination of the fishes of Lake Superior, compared with those of the adjacent waters, is likely to throw more light ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... take an attack tamely, himself came to the front. I was able to fix the contest in the public mind as one between himself and myself; and, against all probabilities, I won by the rather narrow margin of eighteen thousand plurality. ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... exclaimed, "I too am a poet," and his genius was awakened. Charles Bossuet's mind was first fired to study by reading, at an early age, Fontenelle's 'Eloges' of men of science. Another work of Fontenelle's—'On the Plurality of Worlds'—influenced the mind of Lalande in making choice of a profession. "It is with pleasure," says Lalande himself in a preface to the book, which he afterwards edited, "that I acknowledge my obligation to it for that devouring activity which its perusal first excited in me at the ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... possible to those born blind and certain people can see things that are happening a great distance away, and their reports have been proved correct; certain phenomena of double-consciousness cannot be explained without the plurality—the duality, at all events—of ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal

... of a monotonous theology of one solitary God. They liked rather a divine company upon Olympus. Well, Christianity with its Trinity-teaching presented to them a limited polytheism. God was not physically one, as in Judaism, nor many, as in Hellenism. He was a Trinitarian Plurality in Unity. He was not a grim hermit, but He had the riches of an ...
— The Agony of the Church (1917) • Nikolaj Velimirovic

... or his repetitions. The public has seen the extract, on which account I have nothing to say upon the subject. My opinion of it has not been printed, nor do I know that it ever will be; however, it was written at the same time the extract was made. From this I passed to the 'Polysynodie', or Plurality of Councils, a work written under the regent to favor the administration he had chosen, and which caused the Abbe de Saint Pierre to be expelled from the academy, on account of some remarks unfavorable to the preceding administration, and with ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... with this commendable feeling that pins'-heads (whose smallness in former days became a proverb) should now resemble the apex of a beadle's staff; and, as though to make "assurance doubly sure," a plurality is absolutely required for the decoration of a gentleman. In these times, when political partisanship is so exceedingly violent, why not make the pins indicative of the opinions of the wearer, as the waistcoat was in the days of Fox. We could suggest some ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... necessarily careless about religion. Newcastle and Hardwicke, for example, were religious men, and the personal piety of some preferment-seeking bishops is unquestioned. It was a matter in which the Church was neither better nor worse than the age. The ecclesiastical system was disorganised by plurality and non-residence; the dignified clergy as a whole were worldly minded, and the greater number of the rest were wretchedly poor. The Church was roused to a sense of its duty to society by methodism ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... founded on the principle of expense; an objection, however, which, when we come to take a nearer view of it, will appear in every light to stand on mistaken ground. If, in addition to the consideration of a plurality of civil lists, we take into view the number of persons who must necessarily be employed to guard the inland communication between the different confederacies against illicit trade, and who in time will infallibly spring up out of the necessities of revenue; and if we also take into view the military ...
— The Federalist Papers

... any number. This plurality of affinities you of course cannot appreciate. A prejudiced Wor-r-r-ld cannot understand the Bond of Union which connects all the Brothers and Sisters in a Spiritual Marriage. The results of the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 23, September 3, 1870 • Various

... shown by the ideograph to the right over the three perpendiculars denoting plurality, may be either a frog or ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... county is Republican in politics generally, the rural districts being so strongly so as often to overbalance the normal Democratic plurality in Chicago. Thus another ground of jealousy is found In the distribution ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various

... upon the world-ground, call to mind the pantheism of Spinoza. Schleiermacher seeks to tone this down by giving the world of things a relative independence; God and the world are inseparable, and yet must be distinguished. God is unity without plurality, the world plurality without unity; the world is spatial-temporal, while God is spaceless and timeless. He is, however, not conceived as a personality, but as the universal creative force, as the ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... the development of the country, the opposition to slavery and the preservation of the Union. It was about to engage in a political contest for the administration of the government. It was in the minority in the Senate, and had but a bare plurality in the House. It had to contest with an adverse Executive and Supreme Court, with a well-organized party in possession of all the patronage of the government, in absolute control of the slaveholding states, and supported by strong minorities in each ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... from the brotherhood, if that term can be applied to a circle of acquaintance, who, without any formal institution of rules, have gradually acquired a consistency that approximates to organisation. But the universe of this vast city contains a plurality of systems; and the one into which I have been attracted may be described as that of the idle intellects. In general society, the members of our party are looked up to as men of taste and refinement, and are received ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt

... Secret Ballot Law, requiring all ballots to be inclosed in envelopes; a law to take the sense of the people whether a Convention shall be called to revise the Constitution of the State; a law changing the composition of the Board of Overseers of Harvard University; the Plurality Act, in accordance with which members of Congress at the second trial, and Presidential electors at the first, are elected by a plurality of votes. At the special election to supply three vacancies in the Congressional representation, Mr. RANTOUL, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... fact that his spirit is a synthesis of heterogeneous elements. They force him back on himself. They rouse in him the dormant sense of personal being. It is the apprehension of strong contrast in his experience of himself, the apprehension of the plurality of his being, that accentuates the deep-lying unity. The more violent the change in the walks of life, the clearer becomes the concept of the continuity. Civilian or soldier, the man, ...
— Monophysitism Past and Present - A Study in Christology • A. A. Luce

... the Wolfians; but the inference drawn from them, that the Homeric poems began to exist in a piecemeal condition, is, as we have seen, unnecessary. These poems may indeed be compared, in a certain sense, with the early sacred and epic literature of the Jews, Indians, and Teutons. But if we assign a plurality of composers to the Psalms and Pentateuch, the Mahabharata, the Vedas, and the Edda, we do so because of internal evidence furnished by the books themselves, and not because these books could not have been preserved by oral tradition. ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske

... heaven, like others, is divided into three, the highest, middle and lowest. Those who acknowledge the Lord to be one with the Father and thus the one God are in the highest heaven; in the next heaven are those who renounce a plurality of wives and live with one; and in the lowest are those who are being initiated. More about this religion may be seen in Continuation about the Last Judgment and the Spiritual World (nn. 68-72), where the Mohammedans and ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg

... authors. We have no positive proof that Moses had aught to do with its authorship, although parts of it may be based on data which either he originated or sanctioned. The books of Samuel exhibit a plurality of sources. The book of Isaiah was written to record the sayings of at least two persons, both men of marvelous spiritual vision. The Song of Solomon was originally probably a Persian love-poem. The book of Job ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... total four hundred and forty-four electoral votes Cleveland received two hundred and seventy-seven, a plurality of one hundred and thirty-two. The Senate now held forty-four Democrats, thirty-seven Republicans, and four Populists; the House two hundred and sixteen Democrats, one hundred and twenty-five ...
— Official Views Of The World's Columbian Exposition • C. D. Arnold

... well, I suppose," she assented; and Rowdy turned and rode by her side, grateful for the plurality of the pronoun which tacitly included him in her wanderings, and meditating many things. For one, he wondered if she were as nice a girl as her voice sounded. He could not see much of her face, because it was muffled in a white silk scarf. Only her eyes showed, ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower

... white species have but one, may perhaps account for the greater viciousness of the former—it being generally admitted that the most ferocious of all known monsters are those which have been furnished with a plurality of horns. This is the position taken by the famous New England naturalist, NEAL DOW, in his dissertations on that destructive Eastern pachyderm, the Striped Pig, and it seems to be fully borne out by ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various



Words linked to "Plurality" :   multitude, large indefinite amount, pack, battalion, large number, large indefinite quantity



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