"Plural" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... (Podere is Italian for master. It is a title of courtesy, and conveys reverence and admiration.) "Pollo is one chicken by itself; when there are enough present to constitute a plural, it is POLLI." ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... should say—"now during the time the war lasts you shall be our valiant man, and afterwards no ": or another meaning would be simply "valiant men," for "cuna" is an adverb of time, and also denotes the plural[36]. In whichever meaning, it is very applicable to these temporary captains in the days of behetrias and general liberty. So that from the general flood of which they have a tradition to the time when the Incas began to reign, which was 3519 years, all the natives of ...
— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa
... expressive of contempt. The idea of disrespect annexed to the use of the second person in discourse, though difficult to be accounted for, seems pretty general in the world. The Europeans, to avoid the supposed indecorum, exchange the singular number for the plural; but I think with less propriety of effect than the Asiatic mode; if to take off from the bluntness of address be the object ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... the servant, omitting the "Miss," notwithstanding that Alley had put in her claim for it by using the plural number. ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... bore a striking resemblance to the waltz-loving Diana Clapperton, up and down ball-rooms, to the unspeakable terror of squadrons of turbaned old ladies. Deafening peals of bells, rung by troops of Freddy ColeMEN (which I take to be the correct plural of Coleman), were rousing night-capped nations from their slumbers in alarm, to whom flocks of frightened mayors were bleating forth bewildered orders, which resulted in perplexing everybody; and through it all, mixed up and combined with everything, the pale interesting face of Clara ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... true," she returned, "then you need not be more afraid than I, because 'people' is plural. What were you ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... Ullathorne people in their severity. He loved to consort with low people. He not only drank—that might have been forgiven—but he drank in tap-rooms with vulgar drinkers; so said his friends, and so said his enemies. He denied the charge as being made in the plural number, and declared that his only low co-reveller was Roger Scatcherd. With Roger Scatcherd, at any rate, he associated, and became as democratic as Roger was himself. Now the Thornes of Ullathorne were of the very ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... Data as were furnished by the Problem of the "Five Liars." pg-x The coined words, introduced in previous editions, such as "Eliminands" and "Retinends", perhaps hardly need any apology: they were indispensable to my system: but the new plural, here used for the first time, viz. "Soriteses", will, I fear, be condemned as "bad English", unless I say a word in its defence. We have three singular nouns, in English, of plural form, "series", "species", and "Sorites": ...
— Symbolic Logic • Lewis Carroll
... 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. ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... 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 infinity intelligent ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... classes or 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
... admitted."—Ib., p. 242. While he thus identifies the participle with the verb, this author scruples not to make what he calls the imperfect participle perform all the offices of a noun: saying, "Frequently too it is used as a noun, admits a preposition or an article before it, becomes a plural by taking s at the end, and governs a possessive case: as, 'He who has the comings in of a prince, may be ruined by his own gaming, or his wife's squandering.'"—Ib., p. 144. The plural here exhibited, if rightly written, would have the s, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... entrance-hall of Beuvry Station. It was small and crowded. The floor was covered with straw which we could not renew. After the first fortnight the population of this chamber increased rapidly; one or two of us spoke of himself hereafter in the plural. They gave far less trouble than we had expected, and, though always with some of us until the spring, suffered heavy casualties from the use of copious petrol and the baking of washed shirts ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... observed that in some of these instances the Canons are spoken of in the plural, when the particular infraction which occasions their mention relates only to one of them. This shows they were collected into a code, if, indeed, that need be proved; for, in truth, that various Canons should exist, and be in force, and yet not be ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... definite relation should thus exist between the planetary masses and the planetary intervals.[196] Lambert, on the other hand, sportively suggested that the body or bodies (for it is noticeable that he speaks of them in the plural) which once bridged this portentous gap in the solar system, might, in some remote age, have been swept away by a great comet, and forced to attend ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... Captain with that maddening twinkle in his eye, "but anybody that calls the plural of 'moose' 'mooses' couldn't be expected ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... 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 ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... or emollient purposes, al-Zahw[a]r[i] suggested medications, such as egg white, salt water (normal saline), sap of psyllium, several ointments, "duhn" of rose, and other "adh[a]n" (plural of "duhn," the fatty or oily essences extracted from ...
— Drawings and Pharmacy in Al-Zahrawi's 10th-Century Surgical Treatise • Sami Hamarneh
... to the Book of Foundations, Father Garcia de Toledo, her confessor at St. Joseph's Convent, is said to be responsible for the order to rewrite the "Life"; but in the Preface to the "Life" St. Teresa speaks of her "confessors" in the plural. Fathers Ibanez and Banez may be included in the number. See also ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... no occasion for the plural. I don't give 'us girls' anything. I am much too busy for that. But I know you think, Miss Marian, and have ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... one is done; And so I find I cannot write an ode, Not even a ten-syllabic blank-verse ode, In second persons singular of verbs, In "snifflest" and in "wheezest" and the rest, For I am sure to trip and spoil the thing, And bring grammatic censure on my head. Be, therefore, plural—"you" instead of "thou"— Which makes things simpler. Now we can get on. O fain-avoided and most loathsome Cold, You with the sneezing, teasing, wheezing airs, What make you here at such a time as this, Melting my snowy store of handkerchiefs, Rasping my throat and bringing aches ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 15, 1916 • Various
... contains the five Roundles of the Colours, which are globular, and are usually shaded accordingly. The Torteau, No. 152, in the plural Torteaux, is gules: the Hurt is azure: the Pellet or Ogress is sable: the Pomme is vert: and the Golpe is purpure. These distinctive titles, which are more calculated to perplex the student than to simplify his study, are of comparatively recent origin, the early Heralds having ...
— The Handbook to English Heraldry • Charles Boutell
... the commonest declension for masculine nouns, and it has fixed the normal plural for ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... the whole battery, wasn't it?" asked Gordon, "and two huts is plural. I said houses of the people. I couldn't say two houses of the people. Just you send this as you get it. You are not an American consul at the present moment. You are an under-paid agent of a cable company, ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... 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, as ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... made a fayre speake? If they had put in Mightye Joue, and gods in thee plural number, and Venus with Cupide thee blynd Boy, al had beene in thee nick, thee rythme had been of a right stamp. For a few such stiches boch vp oure newe fashion makers. Prouyded not wythstanding alwayes that Artaxerxes, al be yt hee bee spurgalde, beeing ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... plural of a surname is, in strictness, always used by the Italians in speaking of a man by his full name, dei being understood between the Christian and surname, as Benedetto (dei) Ferondi, Benedict of the Ferondos or Ferondo family, ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... very improbable on extrinsic grounds that they were both written by one hand and certain intrinsic evidence, changes in the mode of narration, especially the use of the first personal pronoun in the plural in certain passages, has been pointed to as making against single authorship. This tendency to deny old-time traditions of authorship with regard to many classical writings was a marked characteristic of the early part of the nineteenth ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... is that good, that acceptable, and perfect will of Thine: yea, Thou teachest him, now made capable, to discern the Trinity of the Unity, and the Unity of the Trinity. Wherefore to that said in the plural. Let us make man, is yet subjoined in the singular, And God made man: and to that said in the plural. After our likeness, is subjoined in the singular, After the image of God. Thus is man renewed in the knowledge of God, after ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... examination of Suetonius, Life of Claudius, chapter 25, it seems likely that Dio wrote "cities" (plural), referring to all ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... father, forgetting at this moment of genuine feeling the pompous plural in which he had hitherto spoken of himself. The Prince fondly kissed his child. The boy was about ten years of age, exquisitely handsome. Courage, not audacity, was imprinted on ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... Comparison Confusion of Adjectives and Adverbs Improper Forms of Adjectives Errors in Comparison Singular and Plural Adjectives Placing of Adverbs and Adjectives ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... 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 couple ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 3, 1892 • Various
... I couldn't pass the day without seeing you," he went on, speaking French, as he always did to avoid using the stiff Russian plural form, so impossibly frigid between them, and the dangerously ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... on Pachmann, dropping the plural once for all, "that, though you may render all explosives useless, and blow up forts and battleships and arsenals, you will not stop war. You will merely compel it to shift to another basis—to the old basis, ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... my head, 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 deaths I fearless play Parent of softest ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... spiritual audacity! Not courage, if you please, but courages. There is much virtue in the plural. It was as much as to say, "All our eggs are not in one basket. We are likely to meet more than one kind of danger. What of it? We have more than one kind of courage. It is well ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... not "existences." Why do I say "existence", and not "existences"? Why, with a fine handsome plural ready to hand, do I wind you up and turn you off, so to speak, with a piffling little singular not fit for a half-starved newspaper fellow, let alone a fine, full-fledged, intellectual and well-read vegetarian and teetotaller who writes in the reviews? Eh? Why ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... The night was 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 that favored ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... "Plural of album, my lord," explained the refined factotum, "more delicate, I conceive, than the ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... horse-chestnut—especially the horst-chestnut. That 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
... geometrical cube, the die used in play, 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 plural ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... 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
... facts may be noted before we start our investigation of Luther's writings: 1. Is it not remarkable that Joseph Smith himself does not cite Luther as his authority in defense of plural marriages? What an impression would the man have made, had he known what Mr. Roberts and some Catholics know! 2. Charging Lutheranism, that is, the Lutheran Church, with teaching polygamy, implies that the confessional writings of the Lutheran Church contain this ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... Toward your children)—Ver. 151. The plural "liberos" is here used to signify the one son which Menedemus has. So in the Hecyra, l. 217, the same word is used to signify but one daughter. This was a common mode of expression in the times of the earlier ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... the Pal-ul-don word for gorge with the English plural, which is not the correct native plural form. The latter, it seems to me, is awkward for us and so I have generally ignored it throughout my manuscript, permitting, for example, Kor-ul-ja to answer for both singular and plural. However, for the benefit of ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a great deal more to say than one has any right to say, and when at the same time one is expected to say particularly little, it is very hard to write a good note. All sorts of ideas creep in and express themselves automatically. A misplaced plural for a singular, a superlative adjective where the vaguer comparative belongs; the vast and immeasurable waste of weary years that may lie between "dear" and "dearest," the gulf placed between "sincerely yours, John Smith," and "yours, J.S.," and "your J.," until the blessed state is reached ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... 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
... 'courtiers' and 'king,' as to the sense;—only it is not impossible that Shakspeare'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 Shakspearian. What, however, is meant by 'our bloods no more obey the heavens?'—Dr. Johnson's assertion that 'bloods' signify 'countenances,' ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... readers the plural form, "Electricities," which frequently appears in the following pages, might seem a strange innovation. The Editor therefore states, by way of anticipation, that in certain important points the electrical ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... translation is, "On the spheres that I saw and on the paintings of world-maps it is this region." The plural number is used in both cases. Of the globes of this date, i.e., 1492 or earlier, that of Behaim is the only one that has come down to us. Of the world maps Toscanelli's, no longer extant, may have been one, but it is to be noted ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... November he announced his intention of introducing during the coming session of 1912 the Electoral Reform Bill which he had foreshadowed in 1908; he said that in this Bill all existing franchises would be swept away, plural voting abolished and the period of residence reduced. The new franchise to be created was, he added, to be based on citizenship and votes were to be given to "citizens of full age and competent understanding," but no mention was made of the enfranchisement of ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... the Upper House to introduce plural voting, the bill became law in January 1907, the peers insisting only upon the establishment of a fixed maximum number or numerus clausus, of non-hereditary peers, so as to prevent the resistance of the Upper Chamber ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... plural of toveyo, which Molina, in his dictionary, translates "foreigner, stranger." Sahagun says that it was applied particularly to the Huastecs, a Maya tribe living in the province of Panuco. Historia, etc., Lib. ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... Khosrau (Cyrus) is the title of several ancient kings of Persia, and is here used in the plural to denote monarchs in general. The term "kiblah," fronting-point, signifies the object towards which the worshipper turns ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... girl's society. There still seemed to linger upon his palate the flavor of Aunt Eunice's pullets, from which he had been despoiled by his first enforced call upon her ward, and though he had regretfully heard Susanna say "chicken" without the plural "s," he knew that, being himself "company," he would get his full share of the fowl, which he trusted might be a ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... writers, he knew very little about the language historically or critically. His prose and poetry swarm with locutions that would have made Lindley Murray's hair stand on end. How little he knew is plain from his criticising in Ben Jonson the use of ones in the plural, of "Though Heaven should speak with all his wrath," and be "as false English for are, though the rhyme hides it." Yet all are good English, and I have found them all in Dryden's own writing! Of his sins against idiom I have a longer list than I have room for. ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... wood. But even these may have been in J or E originally, and left out when JE was combined with P. Steuernagel divides the legal as well as the hortatory parts of D between two authors, one of whom uses the 2nd person plural when addressing Israel, and the other the 2nd person singular; but as a similar alternation is constantly found in writings universally acknowledged to be by the same author, this clue seems anything but trustworthy, depending as it does on the presence or absence of a single Hebrew ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... and newspapers. When the opera was 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 in 1570. ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... has been done by the Expedition, it should always be understood that Dr. Kirk, Mr. Charles Livingstone, Mr. R. Thornton, and others composed it. In using the plural number they are meant, and I wish to bear testimony to the untiring zeal, energy, courage, and perseverance with which my companions laboured; undaunted by difficulties, dangers, or hard fare. It is my firm belief that, were their services required ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... of "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 ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... from his duty to them than renounce his hope of heaven. He added, in phraseology metaphorical indeed, but perfectly intelligible, that he was the mouthpiece of several of the nonjuring prelates, and especially of Sancroft. "Sir, I speak in the plural,"—these are the words of the letter to James,—"because I write my elder brother's sentiments as well as my own, and the rest of our family." The letter to Mary of Modena is to the same effect. "I say this in behalf of my elder brother, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the memory of the Scaean Gate in the Great Tower of Ilium, and the constant use of the name Scaean Gate in the plural, because it had to be described as double, and in fact it has been proved to be a double gate. According to the lines of the Iliad, it now seems extremely probable that, at the time of Homer's visit, the King of Troy declared that his race ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... be at the trouble of referring to the instrument itself, he would see that the backers of Dr. Reasono were mentioned in the plural number, while that of Sir John himself was alluded to only in the ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... 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 ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... the "Holder of the paths (of our lives)," 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 ...
— Zuni Fetiches • Frank Hamilton Cushing
... used as the name of anything that can be thought of, John, boy, paper, cold, fear, crowd. There are three things about a noun which indicate its relation to other words, its number, its gender, and its case. There are two numbers, singular meaning one, and plural meaning more than one. ...
— Word Study and English Grammar - A Primer of Information about Words, Their Relations and Their Uses • Frederick W. Hamilton
... and Dr. Owen Pughe, is a Fairy, a goblin, etc. The plural of Gwyll would be Gwylliaid, or Gwyllion, but this latter word Dr. Pughe defines as ghosts, hobgoblins, etc. Formerly, there was in Merionethshire a red haired family of robbers called Y Gwylliaid Cochion, or Red Fairies, of whom I shall ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... somewhat arbitrary symbols. The commonest form of abbreviation is the substitution for a word of its initial letter; but, with a view to prevent ambiguity, one or more of the other letters are frequently added. Letters are often doubled to indicate a plural or ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... plural. But how altogether unseemly, thought Mrs. Fisher. Such implications. Mrs. Arbuthnot clearly thought so too, for she had ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... A. M. on May 7 Captain Turner received the wireless from the Admiralty plainly intended for the Lusitania, informing him that submarines (plural) were active in the southern part of the Irish Channel and when last heard of were twenty miles south of Coningbeg Light Vessel. This wireless message presented acutely to the Captain the problem as to the best course to pursue, always bearing in mind his determination and the ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... edition, followed 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 ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... began to think 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
... Not 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! There ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... Spahis? Why were all Parisians commonplace? Why—why? Her sister and brother-in-law called her the savage worshipper, and took her down to the cafe on the terrace to dine. And all through dinner mademoiselle talked of the beaux Spahis—in the plural, with a secret reservation in her heart. After Algiers our Parisians went by way of Constantine to Biskra. Now they saw desert for the first time—the curious iron-grey, velvety-brown, and rose-pink mountains; ...
— The Figure In The Mirage - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... names of persons or families are invariable in the plural, e.g. les Corneille et les Racine, except certain well-known historical names, chiefly of dynasties, e.g. les Csars, les Tudors, les Bourbons. But when used as common nouns to denote 'persons like' ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... Davus sum non Oedipus, Andria, Act I, Scene II. The quotation, transposed by Martyr from the singular into the plural number, is from Terrence, Davus being a comic character in the ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... a 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 this ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... school, the plan of its organization, and 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 that each man or woman makes must ...
— 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
... It is also, and perhaps chiefly, in this case, a pun on the meaning of the plural noun "cenci," "rags," or "old rags." The cry of this, frequent in Rome, was at first mistaken by Shelley for a voice urging him to go on with his play. Mr. Browning has used it to indicate the comparative unimportance of his ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... country town, conceiving that the word clause was in the plural number, would often talk of a claw in an act ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... exercise Peter's office and functions, and should speak in his name. Harken to the narrative, as given by St. Luke: "The Lord said: Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you [observe, the plural number] that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed [not for all, but] for thee, that thy faith fail not: and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren" (Luke xxii. 32) [observe the singular number, "thee," "thy" ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... yit in the said Inche, gravin with armis of Danis."[40] In translating this passage from Boece, both Holinshed and Bellenden overstate, in some degree, the words of their original author. Boece speaks of the Danish monuments still existing on Inchcolm in his day, or about the year 1525, as plural in number, but without speaking of them as many. After stating that the Danes purchased the right of sepulture for their slain chiefs (nobiles) "in Emonia insula, loco sacro," he adds, "extant et hac aetate notissima Danorum monumenta, lapidibusque insculpta ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... Casluhim out of whom came Philistim,"" Gen. x. 13, 14. This is a very awkward quotation on the part of Mr. Everett, as it says nothing in favour of his views, but directly favours mine: for Philistim is a word in the plural number, and is used in the Hebrew Bible, to express "the Philistines;" and the word translated "come"[fn33] is also in the plural number, see Simon's Hebrew Bible. The passage therefore in Genesis x. 13. 14. imports that the Philistines were derived or descended from Mizraim. "Who the ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... 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 ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... ilaskomai, and the Ionic word sophronistus, meaning 'correction.' Zeller 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 ...
— Laws • Plato
... 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 ...
— Addresses on the Revised Version of Holy Scripture • C. J. Ellicott
... 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 have given you ...
— Meno • Plato
... His sandal shoon.] Shoon is the old plural of shoe. The verse is descriptive of a pilgrim. While this kind of devotion was in favour, love intrigues were carried ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... opinions changed, for there arrived from Nantes the commission, perfectly constituted, and wanting, as we have said, neither president, procureur du roi, secretary, nor even executioners. We use the plural, for ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... generally involves some sense of division, viz., interruption, contrast, rivalry, etc. Thus, with a singular noun, 'inter coenam hoc accidit,' i.e., this interrupted the supper. And so with two nouns, 'inter me et Brundusium Caesar est.' And so with a plural noun, 'hoc inter homines ambigitur,' i.e., man with man. 'Micat inter omnes Julium sidus,' i.e., in the rivalry of star against star. 'Inter tot annos unus (vir) inventus est,' i.e., though all those years, ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... propose—indeed, everything pointed to his simply having got to—but wouldn't they very quickly dispose? And then what? That lawyer seemed to think all he had to do was to marry them right away; not them, of course,—one; but they were so very plural in his mind. Funny man, thought Mr. Twist; funny man,—yet otherwise so sagacious. It is true he need only propose to one of them, for which he thanked God, but he could imagine what that one, and what the other one too, who would be sure to be somewhere ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... may appear to use a plural verb after a singular noun, it really expresses his meaning, which is evidently, that portions of the WORD of God are rendered into poetry as nearly as possible, word for word with the original; and he immediately apologizes ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... 3. The plural speakes of moe then one; as, handes, trees, sheep, horses, men, tuo, three, foure, or ...
— Of the Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britan Tongue - A Treates, noe shorter than necessarie, for the Schooles • Alexander Hume
... former [common error or variant for "levy"] this measure, once adopted, her father must consent also [sentence structure is the same in all editions] constructed of several tier of hewed timbers ["tier" used as a plural] he should conduct in a very different manner [sentence structure is the same ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... 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 ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... (dzongkhag, singular and plural); Bumthang, Chhukha, Chirang, Daga, Geylegphug, Ha, Lhuntshi, Mongar, Paro, Pemagatsel, Punakha, Samchi, Samdrup Jongkhar, Shemgang, Tashigang, ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... going to happen," the girl said, with an acceptance of the plural which deepened the intimacy of the situation, and which was not displeasing to Verrian when she added, "If our friend's vehicle holds out." Then she turned her face full upon him, with what affected ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Man," Parsons would say. There is no satisfactory plural to O' Man, so he always ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... simple Raveloe theology fell rather unmeaningly on Silas's ears, for there was no word in it that could rouse a memory of what he had known as religion, and his comprehension was quite baffled by the plural pronoun, which was no heresy of Dolly's, but only her way of avoiding a presumptuous familiarity. He remained silent, not feeling inclined to assent to the part of Dolly's speech which he fully understood—her recommendation that he should go to church. Indeed, Silas was ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... Chapter XI: "flag-ships" plural in original. Chapter XII et seq.: "St. Martinsville" corrected to "St. Martinville" Chapter XXI: "Brownville", Texas, corrected to "Brownsville". Chapter XXXIV: the Grant in temporary command of Getty's division is Brigadier-General ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... be noted in the text of Homer. The Sirens, the first or implicit stage, are sometimes spoken of in the dual and sometimes in the plural; Homer would seem to imply that they are two in number, yet they always act and sing as one. That is, the dualism or separation is as yet implicit; but in the second stage (that of Scylla and Charybdis) it will become explicit with decided emphasis. Later ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... according to the termination of the substantive, or according as it designates an animate or inanimate object.* (* Tamanacu, a Tamanac (plur. Tamanakemi): Pongheme, a Spaniard (properly a man clothed); Pongamo, Spaniards, or men clothed. The plural in cne characterizes inanimate objects: for example, cene, a thing; cenecne, things: jeje, a tree; jejecne, trees.) In Chayma the plural is formed as in Caribbee, in on; teure, himself; teurecon, themselves; tanorocon, those here; montaonocon, those below, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... prefectures (prefectures, singular - prefecture in French; plural - NA, singular - prefegitura in Kinyarwanda); Butare, Byumba, Cyangugu, Gikongoro, Gisenyi, Gitarama, Kibungo, Kibuye, ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... folding 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 ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... a point to 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 culture; and they indicate further the ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... 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, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... accidents,[11] still each one occupies a different place which cannot possibly be regarded as the same for each, since two bodies cannot occupy the same place, and place is an accident. Wherefore it is because men are plural by their accidents that ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... here would not scan but for the elided "e" in "souv'raine" at the end of the line. In some editions "ils" is found and souveraine is spelt normally. Ils and els for a feminine plural existed in ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... Klootsmah or Kloots-a-mah plural Klootsmuk the Indian word for "married woman" but used in the legends for girls as well as women. According to Gilbert Malcolm Sproat who lived in Alberni in the early "sixties" the term used for a young girl or daughter was "Ha-quitl-is" and for an ...
— Indian Legends of Vancouver Island • Alfred Carmichael
... whether prophecy, (not, whether we are prophets;) whether ministry, (not, whether we are deacons, ministers:) and both prophecy and ministry are put in the accusative case; and both of them have relation, and are joined unto the participle of the plural number having, intimating that divers do share in prophecy, pastor and teacher; divers in ministry, deacon and ruling elder. But all the other are expressed concretely, and in the nominative case, ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... CILIA (plural of Lat. cilium, eyelash), in biology, the thread-like processes by the vibration of which many lowly organisms, or the male reproductive cells of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... 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 sin, and if that is the record ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... unlimited assurance 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, ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... 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 advice of Mesdames ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... admitted their use, for we find in Genesis no numeral 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 indefinite sense. "It is the day of the ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland
... all I have done forbye working at Samoan rather hard, and going down on Wednesday evening to the club. I make some progress now at the language; I am teaching Belle, which clears and exercises myself. I am particularly taken with the finesse of the pronouns. The pronouns are all dual and plural, and the first person, both in the dual and plural, has a special exclusive and inclusive form. You can conceive what fine effects of precision and distinction can be reached in certain cases. Take Ruth, i. vv. 8 to 13, and imagine how ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it kindly," laughed Phillips. "He is offering me an excuse to surrender gracefully. We must have a public meeting or two after Christmas, and clear the ground." They had got into the habit of speaking in the plural. ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... things that He commanded this was one: "This I command unto you, that ye love one another." The English expresses as tho it were but one, "This is my commandment." I examined the Greek, where it is in the plural number, and very well; for there are many things that pertain to a Christian man, and yet all those things are contained in this one thing, that is, love. He lappeth ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... suit, and listened, uneasy and ashamed, to a brief, penitential reference to "crazy" things he had done, as a "kid." He promised her never to drink again and incidentally told her that his real name was Edward Tenney. Suddenly they found the plural pronoun: we must do that; that doesn't interest us; Pa ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... there is no process known by which a noun plural can be formed from an adjective, without the previous formation of the singular ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 37. Saturday, July 13, 1850 • Various
... choir is an example of Early English or First Pointed, which can generally be told from something else by bold projecting buttresses and dog-tooth moulding round the abacusses. (The plural is my own, and it does not look right.) Lincoln Castle was the scene of many prolonged sieges, and was once taken ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... itself I! (Fools! a truce with this starting!) All my I! all my I! He's a heretic dog who but adds Betty Martin! Thus cried the God with high imperial tone; In robe of stiffest state, that scoffed at beauty, A pronoun-verb imperative he shone— Then substantive and plural-singular grown He thus spake on! Behold in I alone (For ethics boast a syntax of their own) Or if in ye, yet as I doth depute ye, In O! I, you, the vocative of duty! I of the world's whole Lexicon the root! Of the whole universe of touch, ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... me 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 awful nature, ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... BACTERIA (the plural of bacterium).—Exceedingly minute, spherical, oblong, or cylindrical cells which are concerned in putrefactive ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... singular number only, may be extended to several persons or things; and words importing the plural number only may be applied to one person, or thing; and words importing the masculine gender only ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... college classrooms; women who made plural nouns the running mates of singular verbs; women who were novices in housework; women drilled in drudgery from childhood—all expanding, all dwelling in a democracy that had begun its life afresh in a new land, and all with the wonder of gardens where ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... Familiaris, as he is called, is interesting, because it shows the intimate connection between the farming life of the community and its religion. The Lares were originally the group of gods who looked after the various farms; they were in the plural because they were worshipped where the boundary lines of several farms met, but though several of them were worshipped together, each farm had its one individual Lar. But the care of the farm included also the protection of the house on the farm, so that the Lar ...
— The Religion of Numa - And Other Essays on the Religion of Ancient Rome • Jesse Benedict Carter
... The Bible tells us that the name of one of the Archangels is Michael; Gabriel is also probably of this order, and Raphael. The Cherubim (the derivation of this word is uncertain) are frequently spoken of in the Bible: Gen. iii.24; Exodus xxv.19, 20; Ezekiel i.10; Rev. iv.6. The Seraphim, (plural of Seraph, a Hebrew word, meaning fiery, or burning) are possibly referred to in Psalm civ.4, "He maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous
... 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
... censorship in his turn. "You say 'Cherokees' and 'Chickasaws' when you speak of the Tsullakee and the Chickasaw; why don't you then say the English-es and the French-es?" For the plural designation of these tribes was a ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... all this, we may be sure that his choice of witnesses was not accidental. In fact, his apparent carelessness is very discreet management. His object was, under the fiction of an independent multitude, to smuggle in a virtual unity; for his court physicians are no plural body in effect and virtue, but a mere ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... spirit." He was an excellent fox-hunter, and as excellent a companion over his bottle at the end of the chace—he was prodigal of his fortune, where his pleasures were concerned, and as those pleasures were chiefly social, his sporting companions and his mistresses (for these were also of the plural number) partook ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... what they had to do, and the like: When he talk'd with any of the Whig Lords, for there was a Squadron of them left, that had a great sway yet in the Country, then he would talk of him, and Party and Queen, as one Knot, in the plural Number, most haughtily, thus: We are resolved to do so and so, and we must have none ...
— Atalantis Major • Daniel Defoe
... their enemies report, drive their men but they themselves lead to battle. They are idolized by the nation as a whole and by the army in particular. They do not address the soldiers of the rank and file in the second person singular, but in the more respectful second person plural. ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... all thy civilities without uncovering my head, and at the same time said 'thee' and 'thou' to thee. However, thou appearest to me too well read not to know that in Christ's time no nation was so ridiculous as to put the plural number for the singular. Augustus Caesar himself was spoken to in such phrases as these: 'I love thee,' 'I beseech thee,' 'I thank thee;' but he did not allow any person to call him 'Domine,' sir. It ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... question, 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 they all agreed ...
— 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
... lens into her hand and bade her survey one of the phials with it. Eleanor's scepticism fled. That something was there, in pretty active life, was evident. Somethings. The kinds were plural. ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... 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; "pocks" ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... events at the theater, and not of a pleasant sort. Mr. Brunton, the manager, is in "difficulties" (civilized plural for debt), and it seems that last night during the play one of his creditors put an execution into the theater, and laid violent hands upon the receipts, which, as it was my father's benefit, rather dismayed us. So after breakfast this morning, having put out my dresses ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... rendered bondmen, in this passage, is the same word uniformly rendered servants elsewhere. To infer from this that the Gentile servants were slaves, is absurd. Look at the use of the Hebrew word "Ebed," the plural of which is here translated "bondmen." In Isaiah xlii. 1, the same word is applied to Christ. "Behold my servant (bondman, slave?) whom I have chosen, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth." So Isaiah ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... to 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; ...
— The Republic • Plato
... enter him for the battle with the lion. This is surely a personification of the same obstructions as the elders themselves. In them we have, so to speak, before us the dragon (to be subdued) in a plural form. Analogous multiplying of the dragon is found, for example, in Stucken [in the astral myth]. Typical dragon fighters are Jason, Joshua, Samson, Indra; and their dragon enemies are multitudes like the armed men from the sowing of the dragon's teeth by Jason, the Amorites for Joshua, ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... "Faith is the most plural thing I know. We are all supposed to believe in the same thing in different ways. It is like eating out of the same dish with different coloured spoons. And we beat each other ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... thee (The courteous use of the plural was proscribed at Paris. The Societies Populaires had decided that whoever used it should be prosecuted as suspect et adulateur! At the door of the public administrations and popular societies was written up, "Ici on s'honore du Citoyen, et on se tutoye"!!! ("Here ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... 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 man before ...
— The Bible Book by Book - A Manual for the Outline Study of the Bible by Books • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... grammar now to use a singular verb with a plural noun; but in 1556 it was correct English over the whole south of England, and the use of the singular with the singular, or the plural with the plural, was a ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... the syncretic force of the above line. Giles, in expressing his affection, felt the singular too small, and the vast plural quick supplied the void—Loves must be more ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... criticism, however severe. While your name is unknown, your person is invulnerable: at the same time your aim is sure, for you may take it at your leisure; and your blows fall heavier than those of any Writer whose name is given, or who is simply anonymous. There is a mysterious authority in the plural, We, which no single name, whatever may be its reputation, can acquire; and, under the sanction of this imposing style, your strictures, your praises, and your dogmas, will command universal attention; and be received as the fruit of united talents, acting on one common principle—as ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... word in the right place is an accomplishment not less valuable than the knowledge of the truth (carefully recorded in most English Grammars, and often inflicted as a task upon younger pupils) that the plural of cherub is cherubim, and the feminine of bull ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... to righteousness, he reserved the fiercest of all his lampoons. In "Holy Willie's Prayer," he lays a burning hand on the terrible doctrine of predestination: this is a satire, daring, personal, and profane. Willie claims praise in the singular, acknowledges folly in the plural, and makes heaven accountable for his sins! in a similar strain of undevout satire, he congratulates Goudie, of Kilmarnock, on his Essays on Revealed Religion. These poems, particularly the two latter, are the sharpest ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... we were dragging ourselves was indicated on Cegheir-ben-Cheikh's paper by the one word Tissaririn. Tissaririn is the plural of Tissarirt and means "two ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... one's money; shishka [Bump or swelling.] (on pronouncing which one had to join one's fingers together, and to put a particular emphasis upon the two sh's in the word) meant anything fresh, healthy, and comely, but not elegant; a substantive used in the plural meant an undue partiality for the object which it denoted; and so forth, and so forth. At the same time, the meaning depended considerably upon the expression of the face and the context of the conversation; so that, ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... Latin, like English, has two numbers, singular and plural. In English we usually form the plural by adding -s or -es to the singular. So Latin changes the singular to the plural by changing the ending of the ...
— Latin for Beginners • Benjamin Leonard D'Ooge |
