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Webster’s Dictionary (1828)



91 words match “SIGNIFICATION”

SIGNIFICATION n. 2 definitions
The act of signifying; a making known by signs or other means. A signification of being pleased. Landor. All speaking or signification of one's mind implies an act or addres of one man to another. South.
ADSIGNIFICATION n.
Additional signification. [R.] Tooke.
CONSIGNIFICATION n.
Joint signification. [R.]
PRESIGNIFICATION n.
The act of signifying or showing beforehand.
ACTIVELY adv.
In an active signification; as, a word used actively.
ADAMANT n.
ond and other substance of extreme hardness; but in modern minerology it has no technical signification. It is now a rhetorical or poetical name for the embodiment of impenetrable hardness. Opposed the rocky orb Of tenfold adamant, his ample shield. Milton.
ADJECTIVE v.
or change into an adjective. [R.] Language has as much occasion to adjective the distinct signification of the verb, and to adjective also the mood, as it has to adjective time. It has . . . adjectived all three. Tooke.
AMBIGUITY n.
quality or state of being ambiguous; doubtfulness or uncertainty, particularly as to the signification of language, arising from its admitting of more than one meaning; an equivocal word or expression. No shadow of ambiguity can rest upon the course to be pursued. I. Taylor. The words are of single signification, with…
AMBIGUOUS a.
Doubtful or uncertain, particularly in respect to signification; capable of being understood in either of two or more possible senses; equivocal; as, an ambiguous course; an ambiguous expression. What have been thy answers What but dark, Ambiguous, and with double sense deluding Milton.
AQUA n.
Water; -- a word much used in pharmacy and the old chemistry, in various signification, determined by the word or words annexed. Aqua ammoniæ, the aqueous solution of ammonia; liquid ammonia; often called aqua ammonia. -- Aqua marine, or Aqua marina. Same as Aquamarine. -- Aqua regia. Etym: [L., royal water] (Chem.),…
ASTROLOGY n.
In its etymological signification, the science of the stars; among the ancients, synonymous with astronomy; subsequently, the art of judging of the influences of the stars upon human affairs, and of foretelling events by their position and aspects.
AUTONOMASY n.
The use of a word of common or general signification for the name of a particular thing; as, "He has gone to town," for, "He has gone to London."
CAPACITY n.
y is now properly limited to these [the mere passive operations of the mind]; its primary signification, which is literally room for, as well as its employment, favars this; although it can not be dented that there are examples of its usage in an active sense. Sir W. Hamilton.
CASE n.
minative or first state of word; the name for which, however, is now, by extension of its signification, applied also to the nominative. J. W. Gibbs.
CATACHRESIS n.
by which one word is wrongly put for another, or by which a word is wrested from its true signification; as, "To take arms against a sea of troubles. " Shak. "Her voice was but the shadow of a sound." Young.
CIVILITY n.
to civility, and fallen again to ruin. Sir J. Davies. The gradual depature of all deeper signification from the word civility has obliged the creation of another word -- civilization. Trench.
COEXTEND v.
st. Boyle. Has your English language one single word that is coextended through all these significations Bentley.
COMMONS n.
ould send such message to their sovereign. Shak. The word commons in its present ordinary signification comprises all the people who are under the rank of peers. Blackstone.
COMPLETORY a.
Serving to fulfill. Completory of ancient presignifications. Barrow.
COMPLEXED a.
Complex, complicated. [Obs.] "Complexed significations." Sir T. Browne.
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