"Plural" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are being kept. This is indicated in the twentieth chapter of Revelation, where it is said, "And the books were opened." Notice that it is plural and not singular. There is a record in heaven kept by the Recording Angel. If it were in the memory of God it would be an awful thing, for while God does not remember forgiven sin, he cannot, from the very nature of the case, forget unpardoned ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... a poetic licence. There is, however, an obsolete plural, stalactitae, to be found in the works of John Woodward, M.D., Fossils of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... vii, 1,; Ephesians ii, 2. Even according to modern commentators (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, lib. ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... a mystery in the mind of some why we read in the Bible of churches, when God has but one church. A little attention to the word will convince any honest mind that the church of God is plural only in regard to its geographical location. The people in the different communities could not go up to Jerusalem in order to assemble themselves together in worship, for the distance in some instances ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... 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 and listen, and think about his new home in the great Australian ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... was given the 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 ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... Almighty has endowed us all with a certain amount of brains; but we don't all use them." (Cheers).—Mr. TICKLER in the debate on the Plural Voting Bill. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 24, 1914 • Various
... my lady. We'll try to reform heaven if enough of us get there to form a club. Von Blitz beats his Persian wives instead of his Persian rugs, therefore he needed reforming. Our friend, the Enemy, met him this evening, and told him that no white man could beat his wife, singular or plural, while he was around. Von Blitz is a big, ugly chap, and he naturally resented the interference with his divine might. He told the lawyer to go hang or something equivalent. The lawyer knocked him down. By George, I'd like to have seen it! From the way Bowles ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... Southey allowed me to make what observations I thought proper in the course of the work, provided that I affixed to them my initials; and, with the generosity which was natural to him, thus wrote in the preface: "The editors (for so much of the business has devolved on Mr. Cottle, that the plural term is necessary) have to acknowledge," &c. &c. "They have felt peculiar pleasure, as natives of the same city, in performing this act of justice to Chatterton's fame, and to the interests of ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... indicated, unless the verb shows further irregularities. Intransitive verbs that take sein contrary to rule are marked with 's'. The prefix of separable verbs is followed by -. Of nouns only the plural is given, unless they belong to the so-called mixed declension. Compound words whose meaning is readily discernible from the component ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... should be spelt, properly and precisely, "dog." When it is used in the sense to mean not "a dog" or "one dog" but two or more dogs—in other words what we grammarians are accustomed to call the plural—it is proper to add to it the diphthong, s, pronounced with a hiss ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... brought out in the vernacular, Mr. Frederick E. Weatherly, who made the English adaptation, called the play and the character assumed by Canio in the comedy "Punchinello." This evoked an interesting comment from Mr. Hale: "'Pagliacci' is the plural of Pagliaccio, which does not mean and never did mean Punchinello. What is a Pagliaccio? A type long known to the Italians, and familiar to the French as Paillasse. The Pagliaccio visited Paris first ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... happy than thou hast been with those others," said he softly in Italian, and using the form of address, which, in almost every language but the English, marks a different and more tender relation from that indicated by the more formal plural pronoun. ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... five minutes the particular attitude was a thing of the past, and the worrying thoughts were back upon her with a vengeance. Or, rather, the worrying thought; for her plural number was hypocrisy. She was in for a deadly wakeful night, a night of growing fever, with those sightless eyes expelling every other image from her brain. She was left alone with the darkness and a question she dared not try to answer. Suppose that when those ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... 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 is POLLI." ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... say now. But later? Time modifies...rubs out...more quickly than you think...Go away, but let him hope...I'm going too—WE'RE going—" he stumbled on the plural—"in a very few weeks: going for a long time, probably. What you're thinking of now may never happen. We may not all be here together ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... distinguish it from the Great Pox or syphilis, the French disease, or Morbus Gallicus which attained the proportions of an epidemic in Europe about 1494. The expression "The Pox" in the older medical literature always refers to the Lues Venereal The word "pox" is the plural form of pock; the spelling "pox" is phonetic; ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... by Bentley; Mr. Johnson, the Hampshire and Winchester Editions give 'reflections.' But in Jane Austen's novels the expression 'a series of' is continually followed by a noun in the singular, when nowadays we should probably use the plural—e.g. Emma, chapter xxxvi, 'a series of dissipation'; Sense and Sensibility, chapter xxvii, 'a series of rain'; chapter xlvi, 'a ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... Tannen is the plural of tanne, a species of fir peculiar to the Alps, which only thrives in very rocky parts, where scarcely soil sufficient for its nourishment can be found. On these spots it grows to a greater height than ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... Arnall held it up by a corner and said it was an insult to any master to send him up such a theme. Then he asked Jack Lawton to decline the noun MARE and Jack Lawton stopped at the ablative singular and could not go on with the plural. ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... excitements of the past six hours had demoralised me altogether. I could not remember who or what gradus was—whether it was an active noun or a feminine verb or a plural conjunction, or what. In vain the faithful Dicky prompted me from behind and Graham minor from the side. As they both prompted at the same time, and each suggested different things, I only floundered deeper. I felt myself smiling vacantly first at one, then at the other, ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... doubt you are accustomed to them: scones, baps or bannocks with marmalade, finnan-haddie or kippered herring for breakfast; tea,—of course we never touch coffee in the morning" (here Francesca started with surprise); "porridge, and we like them well boiled, please" (I hope she noted the plural pronoun; Salemina did, and blanched with envy); "minced collops for luncheon, or a nice little black-faced chop; Scotch broth, pease brose or cockyleekie soup at dinner, and haggis now and then, with a cold shape for dessert. That is about the sort ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... translate them, now to add clearness to the explanation, now to do away with it wholly. These translations, sometimes bearing upon entire passages, more often upon single words, were called glosses, Hebrew laazim (better, leazim), the plural of laaz. They were French words transcribed into Hebrew characters, and they formed an integral part of the text. Rashi had recourse to them in his teaching when the precise Hebrew expression was lacking, or when he explained difficult terms, ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... the spots where he had been wounded, especially where he feared the world might have guessed the wound. Did she imply that he had no hand for love-letters? Was it her meaning that women would not have much taste for his epistolary correspondence? She had spoken in the plural, with an accent on "men". Had she heard of Constantia? Had she formed her own judgement about the creature? The supernatural sensitiveness of Sir Willoughby shrieked a peal of affirmatives. He had often meditated on the moral obligation of his unfolding to Clara the whole truth of his conduct ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... our translators "Orion," occurs in an astronomical sense four times in the Scriptures; twice in the Book of Job, once in the prophecy of Amos, and once, in the plural, in the prophecy of Isaiah. In the three first cases the word is used in conjunction with K[i]mah, "the Pleiades," as shown in the preceding chapter. The fourth instance is ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... (or Doom of the Gods) is the central point of the Viking religion. The Regin (of which Ragna is genitive plural) are the ruling powers, often called Ginnregin (the great Gods), Uppregin (the high Gods), Thrymregin (the warrior Gods). The word is commonly used of the Aesir in Voeluspa; in Alvissmal the Regin seem to be distinguished from ...
— The Edda, Vol. 1 - The Divine Mythology of the North, Popular Studies in Mythology, - Romance, and Folklore, No. 12 • Winifred Faraday
... But not pale fear nor anger will undo The iron might of gimlet and of screw. Grin at the window, Williams, all is vain; The carpenter will come and let thee out again. Contrast with him the countenance serene And sweet remonstrance of the junior dean; The plural number and the accents mild, The language of a parent to a child. With plaintive voice the worthy man doth state, We've not been very regular of late. It should more carefully its chapels keep, And not make noises to disturb our sleep By having suppers and at early hours Raising its lungs unto ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... forests, led to the descent of the great river by Orellana, a knight of Truxillo. The fabled women-warriors were said to have been seen in this notable voyage, and hence the name of the river Amazon, a name which in Spanish and Portuguese is in the plural. It was not until nearly one hundred years after Orellana was in his grave that a voyage of discovery ascended the river. In 1637 Pedro Teixeira started from Para with an expedition of nearly two thousand (all but seventy of whom ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... 18 districts (dzongkhag, singular and plural); Bumthang, Chhukha, Chirang, Dagana, Geylegphug, Ha, Lhuntshi, Mongar, Paro, Pemagatsel, Punakha, Samchi, Samdrup Jongkhar, Shemgang, Tashigang, Thimphu, Tongsa, Wangdi Phodrang note: there may be two new districts named Gasa ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... 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 ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... 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 so many columns, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... plural of the personal pronoun, and a great fear laid hold upon him. None the less, the president's invitation was a little like the king's—it was, in some sense, a command. Lidgerwood merely asked for a moment's respite, and went down to announce his intention to McCloskey and Dawson. ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... America". The primary purpose of this clause, which made its appearance late in the Convention and was never separately passed upon by it, was to settle the question whether the executive branch should be plural or single; a secondary purpose was to give the President a title. There is no hint in the published records that the clause was supposed to add cubits to the succeeding clauses which recite the President's powers ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... half a minute the respiration being continued, diminished gradually and were succeeded by analogous to gentle pressure on all the muscles.' That the respiration was not 'diminished,' is not only clear by the subsequent context, but by the use of the plural, 'were.' The sentence, no doubt, was thus intended: 'In less than half a minute, the respiration [being continued, these feelings] diminished gradually, and were succeeded by [a sensation] analogous to gentle pressure on all the muscles.' A hundred similar ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... a laugh for 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 conscientiously ...
— The Beldonald Holbein • Henry James
... speak of other States in the plural number; not one of them is a city, but many cities, as they say in the game. For indeed any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich; these are at war with one another; and in either there ...
— The Republic • Plato
... majesty is found to be evils, 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 ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... and merely added the plural, making it "breeches," I know not; but the present war for the Union has elicited much enthusiasm among the gentler sex, causing them, in many instances, to lay aside their accustomed garb, and assume the exterior of the sterner portion ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... The plural of animate nouns is usually formed by adding the syllable "wog" to the singular; if the word ends in a vowel, only the letter "g" is added; and sometimes the syllables "yog," "ag," ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird
... or Innupits is the singular, Innupin the plural. It may be translated witch, elf, or goblin, with evil tendencies. On the other hand they did not fear a spirit. When on the Kaibab in July with Chuar and several other Indians, Prof. while riding along heard a cry something like an Indian halloo. "After we got into camp," he said ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... book was in the main written and lost during the reign of Manasseh (circa 660 B.C.). It has been observed that in some sections the 2nd pers. sing, is used. in others the pl., and that the tone of the plural passages is more aggressive than that of the singular; the contrast, e.g., between xii. 29-31 (thou) and xii. 1-12 (you) is unmistakable. We might, then, limit the conclusion reached above by saying that the passages in which a milder tone prevails probably ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... recent years, are four in number: (1) a fresh apportionment of seats in the Commons in accordance with the distribution of population; (2) the extension of the franchise to classes of men at present debarred; (3) the abolition of the plural vote; and ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... to the thought rather than to the vehicle of its expression. Although our pronouns are still declined, the sole inflection of our nouns, with the exception of a few like ox, oxen, or mouse, mice, is the addition of 's, s, or es for the possessive and the plural. Modern German, on the other hand, still retains these troublesome case endings. How did English have the good ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... herself is as thin as that of Eos or Selene. Her name is often found in the Veda as a mere name for the morning, and in the plural number it is used to denote the dawns which passing over men bring them to old age and death. Urvasi is the bright flush of light overspreading the heaven before the sun rises, and is but another form of the many ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... find that the plural was merely a bit of verbal embroidery on the caretaking butler's part, and that there was but one kitchen, situated in the basement. However, it was of good size and well furnished with closets, the contents of which stirred Serena's housekeeping curiosity. The inspection ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... into the basket" is to be guillotined. This wealth of vocabulary was discounted by abject poverty in other branches of the language. No one could give a list of the words in "al" that took "s" in the plural, no one knew anything at all about the defective verb echoir, and the orthography of the school would have disgraced a kindergarten. The head mistress suspected a lack of method in the teaching of M. Pujol, and one day paid his ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... the 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 has exactly the ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... is quite simple. The Greek word "oma" (plural "omata") means tumor. This word "oma" is added to the stem of the word ordinarily used to designate the kind of tissue of which the tumor is composed. Thus a tumor formed after the type of fibrous tissue is a fibroma. The only exception to this is in the naming of the two large ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... this ardent confidence on the part of Catholic France; he recommended to his partisans attention to little pious and popular practices. "I send you some paternosters [meaning, in the plural, the beads of a chaplet, or the chaplet entire]," he wrote to his wife, Catherine of Cleves; "you will have strings made for them and string them together. I don't know whether you dare offer some of them to the queens and to my lady mother. Ask ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... "The plural of the word is pandanaceae; and they are the same thing as the screw-pines, and sometimes are found thirty feet high. There is one; and you can see roots starting out of the stem, and heading downward. The leaves are very useful to the natives. We shall get tied in a hard knot ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... extremely 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, ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... calli, plural cales. Literally "black," the name the gipsies apply to themselves in their ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee
... for many years. After his return to Florence he became Secretary of the Commune, and he was the master of Dante and Guido Cavalcanti. His principal literary work was Li Livres dou Tresor, written in French, an interesting compend of the omne scibile. He died in 1290. Dante uses the plural "you" in addressing him, as ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... unchanged, but the alternative word was placed in the margin. In regard of other terms, of which the old rendering was certainly wrong, as in the case of the Hebrew term Asherah (probably the wooden symbol of a goddess), the Revisers have used the word, whether in the singular or plural, as a proper name. In the case of the Hebrew term "Sheol" (corresponding to the Greek term "Hades"), variously rendered in the Authorised Version by the words "grave," "pit," and "hell," the Revisers have adopted in the historical books the first or second words with ...
— Addresses on the Revised Version of Holy Scripture • C. J. Ellicott
... as well as for yours, I will do my very best; but I am afraid that I shall not be able to give you very many as good: and now, in your turn, you are to fulfil your promise, and tell me what virtue is in the universal; and do not make a singular into a plural, as the facetious say of those who break a thing, but deliver virtue to me whole and sound, and not broken into a number of pieces: I ...
— Meno • Plato
... English word, whereas in the past two or three centuries there has been an evident tendency to keep it French and to use it freely while retaining its French pronunciation, its French accents, its French spelling, and its French plural. This tendency is contrary to the former habits of our language. It is dangerous to the purity of English. It forces itself on our attention ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 5 - The Englishing of French Words; The Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems • Society for Pure English
... 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 ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... express itself. In the domestic birds described above, the male type of body appears in the absence of the ovarian secretion, and the female type in its presence. In man and the more highly organized mammals, we must use "secretions" in the plural, since a number of them, from different glands, act together in a "complex." Goodale, experimenting with birds, was unable to definitely decide whether the basis for sex was single or double in that material, though he ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... gastronomically correct were it not for this word "fish." However, we cannot accept Lister's reading lacertis. We prefer the reading, laridis, bacon. The French have another term for this—petits sales. Both this and the Torinus term are in the plural. They are simply small strips of bacon to which Torinus again refers in the above formula, salsum, coctum in media pones—put the bacon, when done, in the center (of the dish). Regarding salsum also see ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... the Perfitie Platforme of a Hoppe Garden refers to "a little black flye," now called "the flea" (Worcestershire plural "flen"), really a beetle like the "turnip fly," and it is the first pest that ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... the Individual or Single Person (or Thing) in the Universe at large. The Number Two corresponds with the Dual Number in Grammar, and with the Couple or Pair in the World of Persons (and Things); and finally the Number Three corresponds with the Plural Number in Grammar and with Society or the many among Persons (and Things); or in ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... note of special interest in their language. All the nouns have a masculine and a feminine gender, and the feminine nouns immensely predominate. The sun is feminine, the moon masculine. In the pronouns there is one form only in the plural, and that is feminine. It may seem that these matters—noted so briefly—are unimportant; but it is such little things that deserve attentive study. At least they serve to show that the Khasis have reached a high level of primitive ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... more like some shrewd, old, humble friend who should have kept a lodge; yet he led the procession of becoming deaths, and began in the mind of Fleeming that train of tender and grateful thought, which was like a preparation for his own. Already I find him writing in the plural of 'these impending deaths'; already I find him in quest of consolation. 'There is little pain in store for these wayfarers,' he wrote, 'and we have hope ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... June's, the moon rode high and clear; "'Twas such a night as this," three years ago, Miss Kitty sang the song that two might hear. There is a walk where trees o'erarching grow, Too wide for one, not wide enough for three (A fact precluding any plural beau), Which quite explained Miss Kitty's company, But not why Grey ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... sites of ancient towns and villages are usually conspicuous in Palestine, and are recognized in the local nomenclature. They are denoted by the words tall, plural tulul, meaning 'mound', and khirbah, plural khirab meaning 'ruin'. These words are commonly spelt in English tell and khirbet (less correctly khurbet) and we use these more familiar ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... greatest importance? What may we not conclude from those words, 'This time they have not missed me'? In the first place, it proves that Champcey was fully aware that his life was in danger. Secondly, that plural, 'They have not,' shows that he knew he was watched and threatened by several people: hence the scamp whom we caught must have accomplices. In the third place, those words, 'This time,' establish the fact that his life ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... a beast he always detailed to his few cronies in camp: the other gunbearers, and one or two from his own tribe. He always used the first person plural, "we" did so and so; and took an inordinate pride in making out his bwana as being an altogether superior person to any of the other gunbearer's bwanas. Over a miss he always looked sad; but with a dignified sadness as though we had met with ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... sex, this lady displayed a taste for hot meals that would seem to recommend her as a matrimonial venture. Like all the earlier exploiters of the devouring element, she was proclaimed as "The Great Phenomena of Nature"—why the plural form was used does not appear—and, doubtless, her feminine instincts led her to impart a daintiness to her performance which must have appealed to the better class of ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... only according to Hebrew and Arabic tradition, neither of them being, in this case, of much value. As I remarked before ("The Gold-Mines of Midian," p. 177), the hieroglyphic name of the land is Md, in the plural Md-n or Md-n; on the other hand, we have no information concerning the origin and derivation of Md, except ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... text, which is something much more than a mere blunder or slip of the pen. The words which follow, viz., 'comfort' and 'stablish,' are in the singular, whilst these two mighty and august names are their nominatives, and would therefore, by all regularity, require a plural to follow them. That this peculiarity is no mere accident, but intentional and deliberate, is made probable by the two instances in our text, and is made certain, as it seems to me, by the fact that ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... 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 ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... over the additional territory of Rhaetia as far as the banks of the Danube, over the dependent islands of the Mediterranean, and over that part of the continent of Africa which lies between the confines of Cyrene and those of Tingitania. 4. The praefect of the Gauls comprehended under that plural denomination the kindred provinces of Britain and Spain, and his authority was obeyed from the wall of Antoninus to ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... corn-merchants at Liverpool, his contribution to the total capital of four thousand pounds being fifteen hundred, of which his father lent him five hundred, and a friend another five at five per cent. In 1787 he thought the plural ending of his name sounded awkwardly in the style of the firm, Corrie, Gladstones, and Bradshaw, so he dropped the s.[12] He visited London to enlarge his knowledge of the corn trade in Mark Lane, and here became acquainted ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... word organ originally denoted but a single pipe, and hence the older English writers, when referring to the complete instrument, generally used the word in the plural number. "Father Schmidt and other famous organ-builders flourished in the latter part of the seventeenth century. The organ in Temple Church, London, was built by ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... this word is here and elsewhere used in its English form, although no such plural is found ...
— Japan • David Murray
... is where we play—I mean it is most pleasant there, hot afternoons. Did you use to dote on horse-chestnuts? Queer boys should. But I rather like them myself, in a way,—out of the way! We have picked up a hundred and seventeen." Miss Salome dropped into the plural number innocently, and Elizabeth laughed over John's shoulder. Elizabeth did the reading between the lines. John was ...
— The Very Small Person • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... himself, after the idea of writing something that the world would not willingly let die came to him, and he began his book before his education was complete. So far as I know, he never wrote a line that had not to do with "The Millennium." He was ever a man sparing of his plural tenses, and "The Millennium" says "has" for "have"; a vain word, indeed, which Thrums would only have permitted as a poetical licence. The one original character in the poem is the devil, of whom Jimsy gives a picture that is startling ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie
... 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
... grinned, and allowed the two to pass on. Waring had gazed within, meanwhile, and discovered the plural wives, more or less good-looking, generally less; they did not seem unhappy, however, not so much as many a single one he had met in more luxurious homes, and he said to himself, 'Women of the lower class are much better and happier when well curbed.' ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... through and through, in her abstraction. Miss Slowboy, in the meantime, who had a mechanical power of reproducing scraps of current conversation for the delectation of the baby, with all the sense struck out of them, and all the nouns changed into the plural number, inquired aloud of that young creature, Was it Gruffs and Tackletons the toymakers then, and Would it call at Pastrycooks for wedding-cakes, and Did its mothers know the boxes when its fathers brought them home; and ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... and explains the vice 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
... which he has left us is manifestly intended primarily, not for secret worship, but for social worship. The pronouns of the "Lord's Prayer" are all in the plural number: "Our father who art in heaven;" "Give us this day our daily bread." For solitary prayer these ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... talking about? Devils? Was that, then, how the public stigmatized blameless persons in search of peace? Devils? What, himself and—no, never Priscilla. She was clearly the harmless innocent creature, and he must be the other thing. But why plural? He could only suppose that he and Annalise together formed a sulphurous plural. He clung very hard to the rail. Who could have dreamed it would get so quickly into the papers? Who could have dreamed the news of it would call forth such blazing words? They would be confronted at ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... Ha[']-no-o-na wi-la-po-na. Not only these gods, but all supernatural beings, men, animals, plants, and many objects in nature, are regarded as personal existences, and are included in the one term a-ha-i, from a, the plural particle signifying "all," and ha-i, being or life,"Life," "the Beings." This again leads us to the important and interesting conclusion that all beings, whether deistic and supernatural, or animistic and mortal, are regarded as belonging to one ...
— Zuni Fetiches • Frank Hamilton Cushing
... at Hull: "The Northeastern Railroads confer—they do not pay, except in passes. Of late years their books may be searched in vain for evidence of the use of political funds. The man upon whom they choose to confer your governorship is always able to pay the pipers." (Purposely put in the plural.) ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... sack, etc," mucub "a bag or sack made of sackcloth," and mucubcuch "to carry anything in a sack or folded in a shawl," it is more than probable we have in these words the signification of the symbol. The duplication of the imix symbol may be to denote the plural; or, as the words come from a root signifying "secret, hidden, covered," it may be to intensify. It is noticeable also that the latter or right-hand Imix symbol is similar to that used for the ...
— Day Symbols of the Maya Year • Cyrus Thomas
... usual dearth of domestic intelligence, although it was singularly oracular on "The State of Europe," and "Jeffersonian Democracy." A certain cheap assurance, a copy-book dogmatism, a colloquial familiarity, even in the impersonal plural, and a series of inaccuracies and blunders here and there, struck some old chord in my memory. I was mutely wondering where and when I had become personally familiar with rhetoric like that, when the door of the office ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... put it to the proof. Since the French have no first person singular imperative, they are forced to use either the plural, as here, or ...
— Bataille De Dames • Eugene Scribe and Ernest Legouve
... will give you pleasure to hear that my father is likely to get his business speedily settled without any equivocation; and that all those prudential considerations which brought us to London were but the phantasms of our own inexperience. I use the plural, for I really share in the shame of having called in question the high character of the agents: it ought to have been warrantry enough that everything would be fairly adjusted. But I must give you some account of what has taken place, to illustrate ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... arm behind her in her left hand—an attitude absolutely necessary to the situation—and replied: 'One is indicative mood, present tense, third person singular, verb active to say. Other is indicative mood, present tense, third person plural, verb ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... evident that your being can not be enlarged by becoming annihilated, or even absorbed into The Absolute, as in that event it would cease to be your being. Moreover, you are told that you will "sport with the Arhats who have conquered birth and death." Arhats are alluded to in the plural, and not as ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... and plenty of ready wit in writing and speaking; of a "jeering temper," and of a most grasping avarice. He was ridiculed on the stage in Middleton's play, The Game of Chess, as the "Fat Bishop." "He was well named De Dominis in the plural," says Crakanthorp, "for he could serve two masters, or twenty, if ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... Oh! then farewell, No more shall visual ray of form acute Affect her wondrous mien. Farewell those lips Of sapphire tincture, gums of crocus die Freed from th'ungrateful load of cumbrous teeth. Mantle farewell, of grograin brown compos'd, Studded with silver clasp in number plural: With jacket short, so famous, tory red, Not hemm'd, but bound about with good galloon Of deepest mazarine (delightful hue!) Farewell (I sighing speak) those non-such shoes Of obfusc colour (heel of form cylindrous) ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... the high priest, for he was not one of the destroyers, but the redeemer of those who were worthy of salvation"); compare Lev. xvi. 4, 23. It is especially from the former of these passages that the plural [Hebrew: bdiM] is to be accounted for. According to it, the various parts [Pg 365] of the high priest's dress are of linen. But the heavenly Mediator, High Priest, and Intercessor, is the Angel of the Lord; compare, e.g., Zech. i. 12, where ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... seldom the charm of variety, is formal in its phrasing. There 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 dry leaves plucked for a tender ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... repeated; as, for example: "How is the Herr Justizrad? I called at the Herr Justizrad's house this morning, but the Herr Justizrad was not at home." Some of the more progressive Swedes are endeavouring to do away with this absurdity, by substituting the second person plural, ni, which is already used in literature, but even they only dare to use it in their own private circle. The Swedes, especially in Stockholm, speak with a peculiar drawl and singing accent, exactly similar to that which is often heard in Scotland. It is very inferior to the natural, musical ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... and with an air of anxious simplicity, Doddle began, 'Article, noun, adjective, pronoun, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection, outerjection, beginning with ies in the plural—as, baby, babies; lady, ladies; hady, hadies. Please, sir, isn't that ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... must be taken as a compound term for "starry heaven." The parallel passage in the Assyrian version (Tablet I, 5, 27) has the ideograph for star, with the plural sign as a variant. Literally, therefore, "The starry heaven (or "the stars in heaven") was there," etc. Langdon's note 2 on page 211 rests on ...
— An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic • Anonymous
... how singular I act: Cut off my tail, and plural I appear. Cut off my head and tail—most curious fact, Although my middle's left, there's nothing there! What is my head cut off?—a sounding sea! What is my tail cut off?—a flowing river! Amid their mingling ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... of its compound or forms and will mean accordingly: (1) The Strong one used 225 times in the Old Testament; (2) The Strong one as an object of worship; (3) The Strong one who is faithful and, therefore, to be trusted and obeyed. This last is a plural term and is used 2300 times in the Old Testament. It is the name used when God said. "Let us make man" and "God created man in his own image," etc., Gen. 1:26-27. It was by this name that God the Trinity covenanted for the good of ...
— The Bible Book by Book - A Manual for the Outline Study of the Bible by Books • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... although thus spoken of as alive, the writer already knows of his Epistles, and refers, in the plural, to those written by him 'to us, and all the rest which we have by us.' The reference here, it will be observed, is not only to the Epistles to the Smyrnaeans and to Polycarp himself, but to other spurious epistles which are not included in the ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... amid his trunks from the home of his father (genealogical poverty denies us the romantic grandiloquence of the plural), it was his mother's farewell arms and farewell tears, and his farewell promises to her, of which he was mainly conscious. He had promised "to take care of himself," and particularly to beware of damp sheets, and then he too had burst ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... [12] "Makama (plural, Makamat), the Arabic word for a place where people congregate to discuss public affairs, came to be used as the name of a form of poetry midway between the epic and the drama." (Karpeles, Geschichte der juedischen Literatur, vol. ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... night was so cold that we all lay down round the fire, and kept it lighted the whole night. Early in the morning we continued to descend the mountain, by a road called Nakb[A steep declivity is called by the Bedouins Nakb, the plural of which (Ankaba [Arabic]) is often used by them ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... see that you also get your singular and plural mixed in regard to mumps," said Gerald. "You are human, after all. But to tell the truth, I don't know that sympathy with the mumpers was the ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... these perpetual corrections of careless reading and mistaken meaning—the light called into existence in the third verse of the first chapter of Genesis is as evidently a different word from the two lights spoken of in the fourteenth verse, as the singular is different from the plural; and the thing signified by it is as distinct from the things spoken of in the fourteenth verse, as the abstract is from the concrete; as, when I say of the first, "light travels 195,000 miles per second," but mean a totally distinct subject when I say, "Extinguish ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... beyond the thousand. There was no word at all in early Hebrew equivalent to our words "period" and "season." When such an idea was to be expressed, it was done by the use of the word "day," either in the singular, or more commonly in the plural. Thus, "the time of harvest;" "the season of the first ripe fruit," are literally "the days of harvest," "the days of the first ripe fruit." In Isaiah xxxiv. 8, the singular is used, and followed by the word year in the same ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland
... believe, not yet set at rest by the learned in these sort of matters, whether the word devil be singular or plural, that is to say, whether it be the name of a personage so called, standing by himself, or a noun of multitude. If it be singular, and used only personal as a proper name, it consequently implies one imperial devil, monarch or king of the whole clan of hell, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... that boy brings me another of those tapeworm telegraphs, I'll throw an axe-handle at him." His pessimism extended up, or down, to generally recognized canons of orthography. They were all iniquitous. If k-n-i-f-e spelled knife, then, he contended, k-n-i-f-e-s was the plural. Diverting tags, written by his own hand in conformity with this theory, were always attached to articles in his shop window. He is long since ded, as he himself would have put it, but his phonetic theory appears to have survived him in crankish ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... psychologically considered, is a bare fact in the experience of the theorist, and the other facts of his experience are so many other momentary views, so many scant theories, to be immediately superseded by other "truths in the plural." Sensations and ideas are really distinguishable only by reference to what is assumed to lie without; of which external reality experience is always an effect (and in that capacity is called sensation) and often at the same ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... with an extraordinary lack of education and training. An excellent piece of English—pithy, forcible, and even elegant—will often shatter on some simple grammatical reef, such as the use of "as" for "that" ("he did not know as he could"), or of the plural for the singular ("a long ways off"). Mr. James Lane Allen, the author of a series of refined and delicately worded romances, can write such phrases as "In a voice neither could scarce hear" and "Shake hands with ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... at once: "Were then these Heaven and Earth gods?" But gods in what sense? In our sense of God? Why, in our sense, God is altogether incapable of a plural. Then in the Greek sense of the word? No, certainly not; for what the Greeks called gods was the result of an intellectual growth totally independent of the Veda or of India. We must never forget that what we call gods in ancient mythologies are not substantial, living, individual beings, ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... it was not without a root; that in fact it was the Judaean conception of a Messiah, translated into Roman and worldly ideas; into ideas which a Roman could understand, or with which the world could sympathize, viz., that rerum potiretur. (The plural here indicates only the ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... tobacco) and when it is required to discriminate between the manufactured and unmanufactured article it is called tabaco torcido, or rolled tobacco. This, however, is only necessary when used in the plural. In Mexico a cigar is called a puro, and in Peru[62] and some of the other Spanish American countries it is called a cigarro puro, in contradistinction to the cigarro de papel, or cigarette. ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... and the temple at Mecca, which is of the same figure. The Persic name for 'die' is 'dad,' and from this word is derived the name of the thing in Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian, namely, dado. In the old French it is det, in the plural dets; in modern French de and dez, whence our English name 'die,' and its ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... was meditating, not on this, but on his own personal wrongs, as he led the little cavalcade in an easterly direction. First, he had been deprived of that glass of Malvoisie— which would probably have been plural rather than singular—and of a conversation with Lord Basset, which might have resulted in something of interest: and life was exceedingly devoid of interest, thought Mr Godfrey, in a pessimistic spirit. ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... doors.—Ver. 185. The plural word 'valvae' is often used to signify a door, or entrance, because among the ancients each doorway generally contained two doors folding together. The internal doors even of private houses were bivalve; hence, as in the present case, we often read of the folding doors of a bed-chamber. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... verse of the ninth chapter of Deuteronomy, where the received version reads, "Thou art to pass over Jordan this day, to go in to possess nations greater and mightier than thyself," the corresponding passage of the fragments substitutes the plural for the singular, "Ye" for '"Thou," while for "g'dolim," the word translated "greater," it reads "rabbim." But a far more complete idea of the variations of text and signification may be obtained ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... atmosphere. bawled, cried out. ere, before. bad, ill; vicious. e'er, ever. bade, past tense of bid. heir, one who inherits. baize, a kind of cloth. aisle, walk in a church. bays, plural of bay. isle, an island. bear, an animal. I'll, I will. bare, naked. cere, to cover with wax. bay, part of the ocean. sear, to burn; dry. bey, a Turkish officer. seer, a prophet. be, to exist. ball, a round body. bee, an ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... the order of their birth, as before mentioned. [Note 96: Chap. IV. nomenclature.] All parts of speech appear to be subject to inflections, if we except adverbs, post-fixes, and post-positions. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns and verbs have all three numbers, singular, dual and plural. The nominative agent always precedes an active verb. When any new object is presented to the native, a name is given to it, from some fancied similarity to some object they already know, or from some peculiar ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... 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 and ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... "I said 'stages'. Plural. Pick any known animal—any one—and tell me how many genetic changes would have to take place before you'd come up with an animal anything like this one." Again he tapped the bathygraph. "Take that eye, for instance. The lid goes down instead of up, but ...
— The Asses of Balaam • Gordon Randall Garrett
... of color. Basid'ium (plural basidia). Mother cells in the hymenium. Behind. Posterior, the end of a gill next to the stem is said to be the posterior end. Bifur'cate. Two-forked. Bulbous. Spoken of the stem when it has a bulb-like swelling ...
— Among the Mushrooms - A Guide For Beginners • Ellen M. Dallas and Caroline A. Burgin
... surly tone, and with a kind of disdain, So as we eat, so shall we work. This he spoke aloud, so that he might be sure the captain heard him and the rest of the men also, and it was evident that as he spoke in plural numbers, We, so he spoke their minds as well as his own, and words which they ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... unharmed, to be soothed and comforted in Tilly's own peculiar fashion; her most common method of amusement being to reproduce for its entertainment scraps of conversation current in the house, with all the sense left out of them, and all the nouns changed to the plural number, as—"Did its mothers make it up a beds then! And did its hair grow brown and curly when its cap was lifted off, and frighten it, a precious Pets, a-sitting by ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... is initiated into the mysteries of his faith here. The Mormon's religion is singular and his wives are plural. ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 6 • Charles Farrar Browne
... 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 this second ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... 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
... scholars have not been satisfied with the common explanation of the name, and have stated that it was originally composed with the word tan['e] (seed, or grain), and the word hata (loom). Those who accept this etymology make the appellation, Tanabata-Sama, plural instead of singular, and render it as "the deities of grain and of the loom,"—that is to say, those presiding over agriculture and weaving. In old Japanese pictures the star-gods are represented according to this conception of their respective attributes;—Hikoboshi being figured ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... 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 me ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... large synovial cavity, and in close proximity to it bone. We may, in fact, and do get in it exactly similar changes to those termed 'synovitis' and 'arthritis' elsewhere. Therefore, we include the changes occurring in it in this chapter, and hence the plural use of the word to which ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... the pubic arches: in the male 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 ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... acting as God's executor, by Whose revelation he knew of their sin. With regard to Joseph it is probable that he warned his brethren, though Scripture does not say so. Or we may say that the sin was public with regard to his brethren, wherefore it is stated in the plural that he accused ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... that the first person, singular or plural, might have a good time; but that awful third! Helena's "they" was as potent and tremendous ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... kinds of the same substance. These are the same in material, but differ in strength, purity, etc. Hence it shortens speech to make the nouns plural, and say teas, tobaccos, paints, ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... appellation for a telescope (see the old sea song of Lord Howard's capture of Barton the pirate). Also, the familiar term for a barometer. Glass is also used in the plural to denote time-glass on the duration of any action; as, they fought yard-arm and yard-arm three glasses, i.e. three half-hours.—To flog or sweat the half-hour glass. To turn the sand-glass before the sand has quite run out, ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... an irreligious note by pretending to believe that the First Gambler's oath is a pious remark. He suggests that prayer and repentance should be deferred until one is dying. Gentlemen of equal rank formerly addressed each other in the second person plural. ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... must acknowledge, very dull of understanding; they is in the plural number, and speaks is in the singular. Will you thus all your life offend grammar? [Footnote: Grammaire in Moliere's time was pronounced as grand'mere is now. Gammer seems the nearest approach to ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)
... worship "of the spirits" is a primary religious duty for the Chinaman. The spirits, however, are an ill-defined set of beings; they are generally spoken of in the plural number, and sacrifice was offered to them as a body, no particular spirits being named. The spirits are connected with natural objects, every part of nature has its spirit. The sun, the moon, the five planets, clouds, rain, wind, the five great mountains, ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... 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
... word used for 'mother' is the same that is used for the division [tribe?] veve, with a plural sign ra veve. And it is not that a man's kindred are so called after his mother, but that his mother is called his kindred, as if she were the representative of the division to which he belongs; as if he were ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... largely base their polygamous doctrines, the revelations of Joseph Smith being upon the Solomon line. Yet the Mormons have advanced in their treatment of women from the time of Solomon. While the revelations of Joseph Smith commended plural marriages, the system and the name of concubinage was entirely omitted, each woman thus taken being endowed ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... and frame shacks that made up the town. The fort proper consisted of a mud wall about three feet high, inclosing perhaps half an acre of bare clayey soil. Outside the wall was a moat, upward of a foot deep, and inside was a barrack. This barrack—I avoid using the plural purposely—was a wooden shanty that had been whitewashed once, but had practically recovered from it since; and its walls were pierced—for artillery-fire, no doubt—with two windows, to the frames of which a few fragments of broken glass still ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... Fire-child falls. An-nik'ki. Ilmarinen's sister. An'te-ro. Another name for Wipanen, or Antero Wipunen. Dus'ter-land. The Northland; Pimentola. Et'e-le'tar. A daugter of the South-wind. Fire-Child. A synonym of Panu. Frost. The English for Pakkanen. Hal'lap-yo'ra. A lake in Finland. Hal'ti-a (plural Haltiat). The Genius of Finnish mythology. Het'e-wa'ne. The Finnish name of the Pleiades. Hi'si (original Hiisi). The Evil Principle; also called Jutas, Lempo, and Piru. Mon'ja-tar. The daughter of the Pine-tree. Hor'na. ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... solid pillars of sand. The Arab superstition invests these appearances with the supernatural, and the mysterious sand-column of the desert wandering in its burning solitude, is an evil spirit, a "Gin" ("genii" plural, of the Arabian Nights). I have frequently seen many such columns at the same time in the boundless desert, all travelling or waltzing in various directions at the wilful choice of each whirlwind: this vagrancy of character is an undoubted proof ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... Fareham. "A man of so rare an honesty must not be thought of in the plural. Colbert's talent, probity, and honour constitute a phoenix that appears once in a century; and, given those rare qualities in the man, it needs a Richelieu to inspire the minister, and a Mazarin to teach him his craft, ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... and how they are inflected through their various terminations. The terminations of the English are few, but those few have hitherto remained unregarded by the writers of our dictionaries. Our substantives are declined only by the plural termination, our adjectives admit no variation but in the degrees of comparison, and our verbs are conjugated by auxiliary words, and are only ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... broad embrace, and steamers steer a bee-line course to their landings, the officers might have been able to say at what hour we should reach our destination. As it was, they merely reiterated the characteristic "Ne znaem" (We don't know), which possesses plural powers of irritation when uttered in the conventional half-drawl. Perhaps they really did not know. Owing to a recent decree in the imperial navy, officers who have served a certain number of years without having accomplished a stipulated amount of sea service are retired. Since the Russian ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... observe the forms of the imperative mood plural which occur so frequently throughout the poem in the Oriel copy. The forms ending in -eth are about 31 in number, of which 17 are of French, and 14 of A.S. origin. The words in which the ending -eth is dropped are 42, of which 18 are of French, and 24 of A.S. origin. The three following French ...
— Caxton's Book of Curtesye • Frederick J. Furnivall
... of persons or families are invariable in the plural, e.g. les Corneille et les Racine, except certain well-known historical names, chiefly of dynasties, e.g. les Csars, les Tudors, les Bourbons. But when used as common nouns to denote 'persons like' or 'works by' those named, they are variable. In the latter case, however, they only take ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... For that plural of the pronoun, Sally thanked him generously in her heart; for that also, Mrs. Durlacher smiled inwardly and saw visions of the power by which Jack would eventually ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... it exports for the Ujiji and other distant 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 plurality, as in tribe or people: thus, Uganga, Mganga, Waganga; or, Unyamuezi, Myamuezi, ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... 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 to the Tain Bo Cualnge, ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... populous city, with abundant springs and far-flowing streams of wholesome water; and gardens of flower-beds. Its inhabitants are a mixed race (Akhlat min el-Nas).[EN71] The traveller making Meccah from Aylah takes the shore of the Salt Sea, to a place called 'Aynuna (variant, 'Uyun, plural of 'Ayn, an eye of water, a fountain): here are buildings and palm clumps, and seeking-places (Matalib: see Lane for the authorities), in which men search for gold." Dr. Badger draws my attention to the last sentence, which seems also to have ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... she could find; for the teacher, though she was not a very learned nor judicious school-mistress, had a heart and affections of her own. She had once, it is true, taken the word legibus (dative plural of lex, a law) for an adjective of the third declension, legibus, legiba, legibum; and Margaret had criticised this grammatical subtlety with an unsparing philological acumen, as if she had been Professor ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... has noted a fondness for substantives ending in -ma and -sis, such as georgema, diapauma, epithumema, zemioma, komodema, omilema; blapsis, loidoresis, paraggelsis, and others; also a use of substantives in the plural, which are commonly found only in the singular, maniai, atheotetes, phthonoi, phoboi, phuseis; also, a peculiar use of prepositions in composition, as in eneirgo, apoblapto, dianomotheteo, dieiretai, dieulabeisthai, and other words; also, a frequent occurrence of the Ionic datives plural in -aisi ...
— Laws • Plato
... she returned, "then you need not be more afraid than I, because 'people' is plural. ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington |
