"Plural" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mocking world as the imbecile violator of an established system? Should I not, in a moment so untoward, more than ever desire to merge my insignificant unit in the mysterious importance which the smallest Singular obtains when he makes himself a Plural, and speaks not as 'I,' but as 'We'? We are insensible to the charm of young ladies; We are not bribed by suppers; We, like the witches of 'Macbeth,' have no name on earth; We are the greatest wisdom of the greatest number; ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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
... 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 synonymously with ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... answered in a 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 ...
— 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
... of the business of the House that has lately assumed alarming proportions—the putting of questions to Ministers upon every conceivable topic. I would here apply, without hesitation, the printing direct and the plural backing, and sweep away the practice entirely from the public proceedings of the House. No single member unsupported should have the power of trotting out a Minister at will. I do not say that so large a number of backers should be required in this case, but I would humbly suggest that ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... It was the salutation in the plural—to Habib, and to the angels that walk, one at either shoulder of every son of God. And as he spoke he threw a new white burnoose over Habib's head, so that it hung down straight and covered him like a ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... bony, with a sharp aquiline nose, pomegranate cheek- bones, and large saffron teeth ever much in evidence. Her speciality, as I soon discovered, was sentiment. Like her sisters, she had had her 'affaires' in the plural. A Greek prince, so far as I could make out, was the last of her adorers. But I sometimes got into scrapes by mixing up the Greek prince with a Polish count, and then confounding either one or both with ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... 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 ...
— Day Symbols of the Maya Year • Cyrus Thomas
... that Dr. Young made were: 1, That some of the pictures of the hieroglyphics stand for the names of the objects delineated; 2, that other pictures are at times only symbolic; 3, that plural numbers are represented by repetition; 4, that numerals are represented by dashes; 5, that hieroglyphics may read either from the right or from the left, but always from the direction in which the animals and human figures face; 6, that a graven oval ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... prayer 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 ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... For they looked like little fiends in their own little hells, Damnation for others brewing— 240 Though their paper seemed to shrink, from the heat of their ink, They were only coolly reviewing! And as one of them wrote down the pronoun "We," "That Plural"—says Satan—"means him and me, With the Editor added to make up the three Of an Athanasian Trinity, And render the believers in our 'Articles' sensible, How many must ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... think that it must be "one of those below." I kept on a little farther, by the crooked river lanes, where public houses were as plentiful as if the entire population suffered from a raging and inextinguishable thirst for beer. The sign-boards displayed a preference for the plural which seems not to have escaped the observation of the novelist. If I did not see The Six Porters, I came across The Three Mariners, The Three Cups, The Three Suns, The Three Tuns, The Three Foxes, and the Two Brewers; and in the last I hope that I found the original ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... struck with the beauty of his plural pronoun as she had judged he might be with that of her own; but she knew now so well what she was about that she could almost play with him and with her new-born joy. "You say 'about the time you speak of.' But I don't think you speak ...
— In the Cage • Henry James
... "Doesn't the plural number cancel the egoism? But I really have something to tell you about myself. Two things, ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... Tuhfeh the fool. Hemca is the feminine form of ahmec, fool. If by a change in the (unwritten) vowels, we read Humeca, which is the plural form of ahmec, the title will signify, "Gift (Tuhfeh) of fools" and would thus represent a jesting alteration of the girl's real name (Tuhfet el Culoub, Gift of hearts), in allusion to her (from the slave-merchant's point of view) foolish and vexatious ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... reader: the first professes to teach the irregularities of nouns as to gender (i. e. which nouns having a masculine termination are yet feminine, &c.), the second to teach the irregularities of nouns as to number (i. e. which want the singular, which the plural), the third to teach the irregularities of verbs (i. e. their deviations from the generic forms of the preterite and the supine): this is what they profess to teach. Suppose then their professions realised, what is the result? Why that ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... be followed by the plural, if taken in a plural sense, although some later editions give the singular, le maitre. In fact, after this indefinite pronoun, a noun, adjective, or participle may agree in gender and number with the person or persons to whom ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... about a year before, had come here impressing horses, and their officer, on being called by him "no gentleman," had struck him behind the ear with the butt of a carbine. I asked what punishment the officer received, and I noticed the plural pronoun as he icily replied, "We didn't enter ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... to have liked a too frequent repetition of this letter, for it is omitted often when a following syllable contains it; as pejero for perjero; and grammarians have noticed that the genitive plural of the future participle is of rare occurrence. In the colloquial and provincial Latin, r is often dulled into l. Thus on one of the walls at Pompeii a part of the first line of the Aeneid was found written, "ALMA VILVMQVE CANO TLO"—a rendering which might have been produced ...
— Latin Pronunciation - A Short Exposition of the Roman Method • Harry Thurston Peck
... said Wildrake; "it is, sir, a cartel, introducing to a single combat, for the pacific object of restoring a perfect good understanding betwixt the survivors—in case that fortunately that word can be used in the plural after the ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... Thus the plural "the Churches" has in important respects a different connotation in the New Testament from that which it has in modern times. In the Apostolic Age the distinction between the Church and the Churches is connected only with the different degrees to which a common life could be realised according ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various
... Hebrews, the word AUR, in the singular, signified light, but in the plural, AURIM, it denoted the revelation of the divine will; and the aurim and thummim, literally the lights and truths, constituted a part of the breastplate whence the high priest obtained oracular responses to the ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... "news is a noun singular, and as such must have been adopted bodily into the language;" and if it were a "noun of plural form and plural meaning," I still think that the singular form must have preceded it. The two instances CH. gives, "goods" and "riches," are more in point than he appears to suppose, although in support of my argument, and not his. The first is from the Gothic, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 32, June 8, 1850 • Various
... lived for art and love, and what else was there in life? A few sonatas, a few operas, a few pictures, a few books, and a love story; we had always to come back to that in the end. He spoke with conviction, his only insincerity being the alteration of a plural into a singular. But no, he did not think he had lied; he had spoken what seemed to him the truth at the present moment. Had he used the singular instead of the plural a fortnight ago, he would have lied, ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... he explained, wearily, "I do wish you wouldn't speak of your vital organs in the plural. Anyone would imagine you were a sort of freak, like the two-headed boy at ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... 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 ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... to happen," the girl said, with an acceptance of the plural which deepened the intimacy of the situation, and which was not displeasing to Verrian when she added, "If our friend's vehicle holds out." Then she turned her face full upon him, with what affected him as austere resolution, in continuing, "But I can't let ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Foljambe 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
... endeavor which had heretofore been exclusively occupied by the sterner 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 ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... the Book of Foundations, Father Garcia de Toledo, her confessor at St. Joseph's Convent, is said to be responsible for the order to rewrite the "Life"; but in the Preface to the "Life" St. Teresa speaks of her "confessors" in the plural. Fathers Ibanez and Banez may be included in the number. See also ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... Chief, so's old Nelson hasn't had but half his usual allowance of water for his ditches. He is sorer about that than he is over the bull, though he certainly is determined to get the critter back. But he got small comfort out of me. I told him to keep his plural fingers off of Lost Chief Creek, or he would lose more ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... 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
... sufficient fluency. A good deal of beating is required to bring them up to the required excellency in different matters, so that, when they return from the close seclusion in which they are kept, they have generally a number of scars to show on their backs. These bands or regiments, named mepato in the plural and mopato in the singular, receive particular appellations; as, the Matsatsi—the suns; the Mabusa—the rulers; equivalent to our Coldstreams or Enniskillens; and, though living in different parts of the town, they ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... Rule brought in, being third time of asking. Welsh Church Disestablishment Bill and Plural Voting Bill also read ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 11, 1914 • Various
... was also a goddess called Fauna, or Bona Dea.] the grandson of Saturn, was worshipped as the god of fields and shepherds, and also as a prophetic god. His name in the plural, Fauns, expressed a class of gamesome deities, like the Satyrs ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... acknowledg'd in Scripture to be really and personally the Devil, or according to the Text, Legions of Devils in the Plural. The Devil or Devils rather, which possessed the Man among the Tombs, is positively affirm'd to be the Devil in the Scripture; all the Evangelists agree in calling him so, and his very Works shew it; namely, the Mischief he did, ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... appendix Pendo, pensum weigh compendium, expense Pes, pedis foot expedite, biped Peto seek impetus, compete *Plaudo, plausum clap, applaud explode, plausible *Plecto, plexum braid perplex, complexion *Pleo, pletum fill complement, expletive *Plus, pluris more surplus, plural Plico, plicatum fold reply, implicate Pono, positum place opponent, deposit Porto carry report, porter Potens, potentis powerful impotent, potential Prendo, prehensum seize comprehend, apprise *Primus, primatis first ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... a would be more proper; as, an heart, an help, an hill, an one, an use. (2.) Till the seventeenth century, the possessive case was written without the apostrophe; being formed at different times, in es, is, ys, or s, like the plural; and apparently without rule or uniformity in respect to the doubling of the final consonant: as Goddes, Godes, Godis, Godys, or Gods, for God's; so mannes, mannis, mannys or mans, for man's. Dr. Ash, whose English Grammar was in some repute in the latter part of the eighteenth ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... English insist on speaking of coal in the plural when they use it only in the singular is more than I can understand. Conceded that we overheat our houses and our railroad trains and our hotel lobbies in America, nevertheless we do heat them. In winter their interiors ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... to the Life of Herbert (1670 edit.). I am not certain to which "first" the "second" in letter 9 refers. "Bevis of Hampton" generally for "knight errant"; "Legier," a resident Ambassador; "States" in the plural—always then "the Dutch"; Snakelessness is more often assigned to ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... build). Consequently anything new in constructional material interests me, and in this connection I would like to ask you what is or what are Prone? I have only seen it (or them) mentioned once, and from the context I gather that the word "prone" stands for the plural of "prone" (as "grouse" is the plural of "grouse," and as "house" might well stand for the plural of "house" nowadays, considering the shortage of dwellings), and that it (or they) is (or are) used either as a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various
... A rather crude English adaptation of the Latin term "Punctus contra punctum" which refers to the notes as punct[u]s (plural) or dots which were pricked with a stylus into the medieval manuscripts. In this phrase the emphasis is on the contra, signifying a combination of different melodies and rhythms, and calling attention to that ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... only applies to God in respect to His supremacy, as when we call Paul an apostle; the faculties of his power are set forth in an accompanying adjective, as El, great, awful, just, merciful, &c., or else all are understood at once by the use of El in the plural number, with a singular signification, an ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part III] • Benedict de Spinoza
... cities, of Europeans and of Eurasians, besides still more specialised constituencies for the representation of land-holders, universities, commerce, and industries. There was no female suffrage, and no plural vote. No elector could vote both in a "general constituency" and in a "special" one. The qualifications laid down for the franchise were of a very modest character. Illiteracy was no bar, as to have made it so in a country where barely ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... 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
... in remote places. Where possible, I have retained the archaic order of the original Text. Such irregular constructions, as e.g., the use of a singular pronoun in the first half of a sentence, and of a plural in the second half, I have left unaltered; for the meaning was perfectly clear. In short, I have endeavoured to make Richard Rolle as he was as significant as possible to English men and women of to-day as they ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole
... that one of them, however, accompanied the writer in his further exploration of the ensuing day, for he uses the plural number, and speaks of his 'friend.' We thus condense his statements: One day (7th March) is described as having been spent in Wady es-Sabaiyeh, or the plain before Mount Sinai. After having penetrated into ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... 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'dlm," the word translated "greater," it reads "rabbm." 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
... 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 ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... 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 ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... presence. Still, world, hear me; mercifully spare a poor grammarian the penance of perpetual third persons; let an individual tender conscience escape censure for using the true singular in preference to that imposing lie, the plural. Suffer a humble unit to speak of himself as I, and, once for all, let me permissively disclaim intentional self-conceit in the ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... other nations had also its peculiar name in the Council, distinct from the mere local designation by which it was commonly called. Thus the Caniengas had for their "Council name" the term Tehadirihoken. This is the plural form of the name of their leading chief, Tekarihoken. Opinions differ much among the Indians as to the meaning of this name. Cusick, the Tuscarora historian, defines it "a speech divided," and apparently refers it to the division ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... phenomena (or, in other words, the results of induction), when reduced to their simplest expression. It is, however, something to have advanced so far, as to see that the study of nature is the study of laws, not a law; of uniformities, in the plural number: that the different natural phenomena have their separate rules or modes of taking place, which, though much intermixed and entangled with one another, may, to a certain extent, be studied apart: that (to resume our former metaphor) the regularity which exists in nature ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... the pith of all its problems of sex and age, leadership and training, aims and objectives. He should also know thoroughly the policies of denominational and interdenominational Sunday school bodies, and, where there are denominations in plural quantity, this may mean a task worth while. Sometimes it is a slow process. Surely, so! The Kingdom, with all the wisdom of Heaven, has been twenty centuries in the building, and it has been wrought out in the Church. The contribution ...
— The Boy and the Sunday School - A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday - School with Teen Age Boys • John L. Alexander
... 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 ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... such as thou shouldest have written classical Arabic (Arabi fossieh), and have called it "al Daboor;" nevertheless, it is proper to write it "Samoom," not, as some do "Simoom," which is the plural of sim (poison).' I shook my head, and said, I did not recollect al Daboor. Then my Reis, sitting at the door, offered his suggestion. 'Probably the English, who it is well known are a nation of sailors, use the name given to the land wind ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... can care much whether we did or didn't," retorted Vixen, shrouding her personality in a vague plural. "If you had cared you would have been with us. Sultan," meaning the chestnut "must have felt cruelly humiliated by being kept ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... this protracted warfare between the States and the Union reach a critical point, when it was desirable to know precisely what early protestors had meant. Madison explained that the resolutions advised only interposition by all the States. The plural form was universally used, and resistance by no one of them planned. No revolutionary action was contemplated. The legal remedies to be found in "interposition" he enumerated as remonstrances, instructions, elections, impeachment, amendment to the Constitution, and finally, if the usurpations ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... change of number: not only is the style improved by the use of those words which, though singular in form, are found on inspection to be plural in meaning, as in ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... to 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, ...
— Caxton's Book of Curtesye • Frederick J. Furnivall
... very clear. I know the people I live among don't know everything. I grant you all that. But Woman Free! Woman Free! Madame Mafflu wants to know what liberty—or what liberties—singular or plural; do you take me?—ha! ha! ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... the priest was morally and physically present and he gave Sacramental Absolution to all, using the plural, "Ego vos ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... having given their name to an important part of London. Clerkenwell is the fons clericorum of the old chronicler, Fitz-Stephen. It is the Clerks' Well, the syllable en being the form of the old Saxon plural. Fitz-Stephen wrote in the time of King Stephen: "There are also round London on the northern side, in the suburbs, excellent springs, the water of which is sweet, clear, salubrious, 'mid glistening pebbles gliding ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... of "courtiers" and "king," as to the sense;—only it is not impossible that Shakespeare's dramatic language may allow of the word "brows" or "faces" being understood after the word "courtiers'," which might then remain in the genitive case plural. But the nominative plural makes excellent sense, and is sufficiently elegant, and sounds to my ear Shakespearian. What, however, is meant by "our bloods no more obey the heavens?"—Dr. Johnson's assertion that ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... I have been looking out for you, everywhere," said John, with a rather fierce emphasis on the pronoun, which, however, as everybody knows, is plural, and means two as much as one, though it was the reverse of this that John Tatham ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... is always employed by Alfred to denote the ocean, while smaller portions are uniformly called sae in the singular, saes in the plural.—Barr ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... intelligible and even 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 note ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... 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
... short time, in the fourth century, bishop of Constantinople; and in the Moslemised cathedral of St. Sophia, in that city, according to Grelot, quoted in Collier's Dictionary, the same words—with the difference that "sin" is put in the plural, sic: ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 182, April 23, 1853 • Various
... 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? ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... speak of our 'crosses'—but the word of God never uses that word in the plural, for there is but one cross—the cross on which the self-life is crucified, the cross of voluntary self-renunciation. How did Christ come to the cross? We read in Philippians the seven steps of his descent from heaven ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... "Halumma"draw near! The latter form is used by some tribes for all three numbers; others affect a dual and a plural (as in the text). Preston ( Al Hariri, p. 210) derives it from Heb., but the geographers of Kufah and Basrah (who were not etymologists) are divided about its origin. He translates (p. 221) "Halumma Jarran being the rest of the tale in continuation ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... the Queen's titles. In these letters the plural "we" and "our" are employed instead of "I" and "my," and ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... David. "It's much easier to understand the plural of girl. Girl in the first person ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... learned that they are the tokens of the Bedaween Arabs, by which one tribe is distinguished from another. In common parlance they are called the Ausam (plural of Wasam) of ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... 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 forms ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... view of the field, at any rate, would be incomplete without such specimens as the three charming oil-pictures which commemorate Holme Lacey. There are gardens and gardens, and these represent the sort that are always spoken of in the plural and most arrogate the title. They form, in England, a magnificent collection, and if they abound in a quiet assumption of the grand style it must be owned that they frequently achieve it. There are people to be found who enjoy them, and it is not, at any rate, when Mr. Parsons deals with them ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... being brought in to break a British strike; it cannot amend a Bill to give old-age pensions to 600,000 people. It can thwart a Government in the minute details of its legislation; it cannot touch the whole vast business of finance. It can prevent the abolition of the plural voter; but it could not prevent the abolition of the police. It can refuse a Constitution to Ireland, but ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... 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. A sacred rock in Finland. I'ku-Tur'so. An ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... taxes; and the Local Government Act of 1894 has placed local taxation on the most democratic basis. The latter has given the power of voting rates to many who do not pay them; and, by abolishing the nominated, or ex-officio, guardians, and the plural voting of the larger ratepayers, it has almost destroyed the influence of ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... town, conceiving that the word clause was in the plural number, would often talk of a claw in an ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... the question. In the original Greek, the words living and godliness are plural. Alford says, 'In holy behaviours and pieties; the plurals mark the holy behaviour and piety in all its forms and examples.' Peter would plead for a life of holiness pervading the whole man: our behaviours towards men, and our pieties towards God. True holiness cannot be found in anything ...
— Holy in Christ - Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy • Andrew Murray
... of New Orleans molasses; "those molasses," as the article was often called, with an admiring plural ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... unknown to them. Other peculiarities characteristic of the Altaic languages are the vocal harmony occurring in many of them, the inability to have more than one consonant in the beginning of a word, and the expression of the plural by a peculiar affix, the case terminations being the same in the plural as in the singular. The affinity between the different branches of the Altaic stem is thus founded mainly on analogy or resemblance in the construction of the languages, while the different tongues in the material of language ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... universally addressed in the second person singular, which carries with it a certain caressing sentiment. Grown persons would be addressed (except by members of their own family, or intimate friends) in the third person plural. Thus, if one met a child in the street, one might say, Willst Du mit mir kommen? (Wilt thou come with me?); whereas to a grown person the proper form would be, Wollen Sie mit mir kommen? (Will THEY—meaning, ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... 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 ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... singular or plural number, for dare not, dares not, and dared not. Deacon off, to give the cue to; derived from a custom, once universal, but now extinct, in our New England Congregational churches. An important part of the office of deacon was to read aloud ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... the noun to which it refers. Such faulty reference occurs most frequently after collective nouns, such as mob, crowd, council, jury, assembly; after distributive pronouns, such as everyone, anybody, nobody; and after two or more singular and plural nouns, where the reporter forgets momentarily to which he is referring. In the following sentences note that each of the italicized pronouns violates one or more of these principles, thereby polluting ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... thing to be consider'd is, Virgil's mixing the Singular and Plural Numbers. This has a wonderful Effect, and is very diligently attended to by Virgil; but I believe never once thought of by Ovid, or any other Roman Writer in the ...
— Letters Concerning Poetical Translations - And Virgil's and Milton's Arts of Verse, &c. • William Benson
... air, the 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 insect. bawl, ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... 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; "pocks" is the ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... The word orbi may be either the plural nominative of orbus meaning "deprived" "orphaned," or it may be the dative singular of Orbis meaning "for the world." Both translations make good sense because the plays are "preserved for the world" and are "preserved orphaned." The ...
— Bacon is Shake-Speare • Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence
... the more probable idea, that 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 Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... myself rather, if I may be included in your plural "we," that I should apply the remark. I am not in need of any further wealth, if you like. I am rich enough already, to be sure. But you, Critobulus, I look upon as singularly poor, and at times, upon my soul, I feel ...
— The Economist • Xenophon
... he begins, half-unconsciously, slipping over every now and then into what seems to be a vague, loose first person plural. ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... Because we speak of a king and of the king's image, and not of two kings. The power is not parted nor the glory divided. The power ruling over us is one, and the authority one, and so also the doxology ascribed by us is one and not plural; because the honor paid to the image passes over ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... glories of nature and art which they had beheld, they were spared the little squabbles over matters of aesthetic taste which often are so disastrous to the serenity of a honeymoon. Touchingly they expounded their views in the first person plural. Even Adrian, whom I must confess to have regarded as an unblushing egotist, seldom delivered himself of an egotistical opinion. "We don't despise the Eclectics," said he. And—"We prefer the Lombardic architecture to the purely Venetian," said Doria. And ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... in the neighborhood of ten or fifteen hundred of them grouped together to cover a spot as large as a full stop or period used in punctuating an ordinary newspaper. This rough estimate applies to the globular and the egg-shaped bacteria, to which is given the name "coccus" (plural, cocci). The cane or rod shaped bacteria are rather larger plants. Fifteen hundred of these placed end to end would reach across the head of a pin. Because of the resemblance of these latter to a walking stick they have been ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various
... the fleet when off Toulon, in anticipation of a possible meeting with the French squadron there, when the disparity of force was less—say, eight to ten. This impression is confirmed by the "Plan of Attack" speaking of the junior "Admirals"—in the plural. There was but one such in the pursuit to the West Indies. It is quite possible, however, that the same order was re-issued upon the later occasion, re-copied without change of words. In any event, it confirms other statements and actions of Nelson's, that an enemy should not be fought ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... detailed consideration. It is because of these germ truths enshrined in the ancient myths that so many bygone modes of thought and expression last on into the new order. Ruskin, in genuine mythological style, often used the term "gods," and explains his meaning thus: "By gods, in the plural, I mean the totality of spiritual powers delegated by the Lord of the universe to do in their several heights, or offices, parts of His will respecting man, or the world that man is imprisoned in; not as myself knowing, ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... attempt of Guiscard, which I think can properly pass but for one of the "some." And, though I dare not pretend to guess the author's meaning; yet the expression allows such a latitude, that I would venture to hold a wager, most readers, both Whig and Tory, have agreed with me, that this plural number must, in all probability, among other facts, take in ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... though they have many characteristics in common, there is an individuality in each that distinguishes him from the rest. He stands out in bold relief—I by myself, I. He feels and appreciates his importance. He knows no plural. The word 'our' belongs to landsmen; 'my' is the sailor's phrase—my ship, my captain, my messmate, my watch on deck, 'my eyes!' 'you lubber, don't you know that's me?' I like to listen to their yarns and their jokes, and to hear them sing their simple ditties. The ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... entomologists I have something else to say: I have to call their attention to the consummate knowledge of the insect-killers, which vies with that of the paralyzers. I speak of insect-killers in the plural, for the Tarantula must share her deadly art with a host of other Spiders, especially with those who hunt without nets. These insect-killers, who live on their prey, strike the game dead instantaneously by stinging the nerve-centres of the neck; the paralyzers, on the other hand, who wish to keep ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... group now known as that of PULO CONDORE, in old times an important landmark, and occasional point of call, on the route to China. The group is termed Sundar Fulat (Fulat representing the Malay Pulo or Island, in the plural) in the Arab Relations of the 9th century, the last point of departure on the voyage to China, from which it was a month distant. This old record gives us the name Sondor; in modern times we have it as Kondor; Polo combines both names. ["These may also be the 'Satyrs' ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... in his pocket, setting out to turn it into 300 pounds by a book of travels. I have avoided mention of Margate, Ramsgate, Broadstairs, and all common watering-places; I have talked of physicians in the plural; in short, no one who reads that paragraph, but will suppose that you are a young man of rank and fortune, to whom money is no object, and who spends hundreds to cure that which might be effected by a little regularity, and ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... ellipse there are two points situated upon the line representing the major axis, and which are termed the foci when both are spoken of, and a focus when one only is referred to, foci simply being the plural of focus. These foci are equidistant from the centre of the ellipse, which is formed as follows: Two pins are driven in on the major axis to represent the foci A and B, Figure 75, and around these pins a loop of fine twine is passed; a pencil point, C, is then placed in the loop and pulled ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose
... he best could by his native wits and such little application as he found absolutely necessary. One day we were reciting in Lowth's Grammar. The Bishop says that in English the substantive singular is made plural for the most part by adding s. Professor Channing called up this classmate of mine, who stated this as follows: "The author says that the distinction between nouns in the singular and plural is that the latter end in s." "Is that a good distinction?" ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... idea to travel hundreds of miles to see a few old remains of a doubtful edifice, built by Bantus! or is the plural Bantams?... I'm sure when you heard we were coming you wondered if you had better prepare a dwelling for us with padded walls. Now, didn't you?..." and she looked up ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... the other two put together; his name is Fiddlefaddle, the toy-shop keeper; and the other two put him forward to do their worst work. In return, he often uses their names without authority. He took Etymology to witness that means to an end must be plural: and he would have any one method to be a mean. But Etymology proved him wrong, King Custom referred him to his Catechism, in which is "a means whereby we receive the same," and Analogy—a subordinate of {326} Etymology—asked whether he thought it a great new to hear that he was ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... information, we learn that prime English beef is underdone, which causes rather a run on mutton. Revenons, &c., is the watchword in many households. Poultry flies rather high for the time of year, and grouse is also up. Grice—why not? plural of mouse, mice—grice, we say, are growing more absent, and therefore dearer. Black game is not so darkly hued as it is painted, and a few transactions in wild duck are reported. Lard is hardening, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 16, 1892 • Various
... she returned, "then you need not be more afraid than I, because 'people' is plural. What ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... case of nouns, the singular with the postpositive definite article and the indefinite plural are given in parenthesis. When a dash takes the place of a plural ending it indicates that the indefinite plural is the same as the indefinite singular. The vertical lines within a word indicate to what part the ...
— Fritiofs Saga • Esaias Tegner
... good and be found one of the best safeguards to the Union. At the period of the formation of the Constitution the principle does not appear to have enjoyed much favor in the State governments. It existed but in two, and in one of these there was a plural executive. If we would search for the motives which operated upon the purely patriotic and enlightened assembly which framed the Constitution for the adoption of a provision so apparently repugnant to the leading democratic principle that the majority should ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... borrowed the Albanian mode of suffixing one to the noun. For this very reason the declensions are more perfect in Slavic than in German and Greek; for the different cases, as in Latin, are distinguished by suffixed syllables or endings. The Singular has seven cases; the Plural only six, the vocative having always the form of the nominative. As for the Dual, a form which the Slavic languages do not all possess, the nominative and accusative, the genitive and local; the dative and instrumental ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... prefer, as more logical, the plural form chansons de gestes, and have so written it in my Short History of French Literature (Oxford, 4th ed., 1892), to which I may not improperly refer the reader on the general subject. But of late years the fashion of dropping the s has prevailed, and, therefore, ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... TREE.—A Yew Tree. First it may be a 'Igh Tree, but it is a Yew Tree. It is either a He Tree or a She Tree. If small, it represents the first person plural by being a "Wee Tree:" the second person plural is the Manager and Manageress of the Haymarket, "Ye Trees;" and the third person plural would be expressed by a Devonshire Gardener indicating this talented ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 3, 1892 • Various
... variant of Ashtaroth, the plural of Ashtoreth, the Phoenician moon-goddess; here mistakenly used for the name of ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... every noun in the singular ends in *o*. Thus: viro, a man; la libro, the book. The plural is formed from the singular by adding the termination *-j*. Thus: viroj, ...
— Esperanto Self-Taught with Phonetic Pronunciation • William W. Mann
... length; "I am a lonely woman, and my life has been broader for knowing you. I mean that you in the plural, for there have been a good many of you. Some have been successful, some have not; a few have become famous, just as you are doing. Some of them have been sent to me; some have come of their own accord. We have been close friends ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... BACTERIA (the plural of bacterium).—Exceedingly minute, spherical, oblong, or cylindrical cells which are concerned in putrefactive processes. Some varieties ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... intrusion, Admiral—or should it be plural? Improper address, I'm sure, but your joint tenure is a concept so new and so vast that I am not yet able to grasp it fully—but you are working at such high speed that I had to do something drastic. You will, I trust, remain here long enough to discuss certain matters ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... powers of statehood which he has since usurped. He secretly preaches a proscribed doctrine of polygamy as necessary to salvation; he publicly denies his own teaching, so that he may escape responsibility for the sufferings of the "plural wives" and their unfortunate children, who have been betrayed by the authority of his dogma. And these women, by the hundreds, seduced into clandestine marriage relations with polygamous elders of the Church, unable to claim their husbands—even ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... F, l, and s at the end of a monosyllable after a single vowel are commonly doubled. The exceptions are the cases in which s forms the plural or possessive case of a noun, or third person singular of the verb, and the following words: clef, if, of, pal, sol, as, gas, has, was, yes, gris, his, is, thus, us. L is not doubled at the end of words of more than one syllable, ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... says: "there are none who do," instead of "there is none who does," a plural due to ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... word used to designate one supposed to have supernatural powers, and is applied alike to human beings and to the spirits invoked in the formulas. Some of the mythic heroes famous for their magic deeds are spoken of as ada[']w[)e]h[)i] (plural anida[']w[)e]h[)i] or anida[']we), but in its application to mortals the term is used only of the very greatest shamans. None of those now belonging to the band are considered worthy of being thus ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... few writers mentioned in this book to whose lovers exactly the same kind of apology is desirable as it is in the case of Nodier. "Where," I hear reproaching voices crying, "is Jean Sbogar? Where is Laure Ruthwen ou les Vampires in novel-plural or Le Vampire in melodrama-singular? Where are a score or a hundred other books, pieces, pages, paragraphs, passages from five to fifty words long?" They are not here, and I could not find room for them here. "But you found more room for Paul de Kock?" Yes: and I have tried ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... artistic, how very strange and interesting, we are? Frankly now is it possible to be MORE artistic, MORE strange and interesting, than this? You surely won't deny that we're remarkable." I was irritated by her use of the plural pronoun, for she had no right to pair herself with her brother; and moreover, of course, I couldn't see my way to—at all genially—include Mrs. Ambient. Yet there was no doubt they were, taken together, unprecedented enough, ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... (plural arpeggi) is a derivation of the Italian word arpa (meaning harp), and from this word arpa and its corresponding verb arpeggiare (to play on the harp) are derived also a number of other terms commonly used ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens
... advisable for Congress to consider what, in the execution of the laws against polygamy, is to be the status of plural wives and their offspring. The propriety of Congress passing an enabling act authorizing the Territorial legislature of Utah to legitimize all children born prior to a time fixed in the act might be justified by its humanity to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... 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, ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... upon Selwyn's lunching with him in order to celebrate the triumph of "their" plan. Selwyn was amused at the plural. They went to a near-by club and remained for several hours talking of things of general interest, for Selwyn refused to discuss his victory after they had left the ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... CHERUBIM, the Hebrew plural of "cherub" (kerub), imaginary winged animal figures of a sacred character, referred to in the description of Solomon's temple (1 Kings vi. 23-35, vii. 29, viii. 6, 7), and also in that of the ark of the tabernacle ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... represented that since the date of said declaration the members and adherents of said church have generally obeyed said laws and have abstained from plural marriages and polygamous ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... quoted by him in his speech in the Convention, which is bound up in the same pamphlet, and follows this "Dissertation" in the present volume. In the Constitution as adopted Paine's preference for a plural Executive was established, and though the bicameral organization (the Council of Five Hundred and the Council of Ancients) was not such as he desired, his chief objection was based on his principle of manhood suffrage. But in regard to this see Paine's ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... they, plural! Your grammar is deficient, Miss Mollie; but I suppose your modesty forbade you to be more explicit. I have lots of good-feeling, and nothing to do, so I shall be charmed to escort you, if you will give the order. It would take me too long to ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey |
