Questions tagged [meaning]
This tag is for questions related to definitions and nuances of meaning of a word or phrase.
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Meanings of "carriage" in Enola Holmes
The following conversation takes place near the beginning of the movie Enola Holmes
Mycroft: We didn't send for you silly girl, we sent for the carriage.
Did you at least bring it?
Enola: The ...
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"Deploy in your way" or "Deploy your way"？ [closed]
Deploy in your way
or
Deploy your way
Which is correct? What I want to say here is to use your own method to deploy something into your computer.
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Learning English : almost like this "where are you from ?" [migrated]
I have one question almost meaning like this "where are you coming from?" but not ask country or state or province, it is not long way long time. It is short way and just happening. It is ...
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How to express a situation when a class teacher briefly and quickly mentions a section without full coverage
How to express a situation when a class teacher briefly and quickly mentions a section without full coverage.
What is the best word (verb & noun) for this situation. Is it called skim? This is ...
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What's the meaning of "to outdraw" somebody? [closed]
In the lyrics of "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen, there's one line that has been puzzled me for a long time:
Well, maybe there's a God above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to ...
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Is "intellectually exacerbating" grammatically correct; and does it mean what I think it means?
Is "intellectually exacerbating" grammatically correct, and does it mean something along the lines of "making others stupider"? If it doesn't, what adjective can I use in lieu of ...
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Is "stife" a name for smoking cooking oil?
My parents and grandparents used to describe smoking cooking oil as "stife". Has anyone else heard of this? Perhaps I've spelt it wrong?
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What could "Your talent is well noted" mean? [closed]
I'm an amateur voice over artist and I've sent my auditions to a few casting calls. There is one individual in particular whom I've asked for an update regarding my entry. This particular part in her ...
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How to talk about two different counts
In our scientific article, I have a sentence:
The numbers of residents and transients are constant over time.
I want to say that the number of resients is constant and the number of transients is ...
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What is the meaning of "partial cloaks"
What is the meaning of ""partial cloaks" in this sentence?
Partial cloaks that work like sophisticated camouflage -rather like the alien in the 1987 movie Predator — might be ...
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What's the word for when two worlds coexist in the same space simultaneously but one is hidden or veiled from the other?
Consider how the wizarding world is hidden from the muggle world in the Harry Potter/ Wizarding World universe.
Or in Hell Boy II. The troll market is hidden under a bridge. Red can see it but it's ...
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Is “actual” both a false friend and a cognate from Spanish to English?
English definition of “actual”:
existing in fact; typically as contrasted with what was intended, expected, or believed.
Spanish definition of “actual”:
current, present, contemporary
These are ...
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Can any member in this group kindly explain to me the meaning of 'Storying' in the context of narrative qualitative ethnographic research? [closed]
I keep coming across the term storying in articles on narrative research. The authors however do not explain how the term storying is different in meaning and connotation from the term storytelling or ...
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When and where did 'hospice' in the sense of 'palliative care facility or program for the terminally ill' originate in English?
Merriam-Webster's Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, first edition (1898) has this entry for hospice:
Hospice, n. {F., fr. L. hospitium hospitality, place where strangers are entertained, fr. hospes ...
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“the room whose door is broken” vs “the room which door is broken”? [migrated]
Which exactly is the difference in meaning and usage between choosing whose versus choosing which in this first sentence?
He chose to live in the room [ which / whose ] door was broken.
How do these ...
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Meaning of a complex word [closed]
What do you understand when you see a board "Intelligentsia Confluence" in front of a hall in an educational institution?
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meaning of " I once had it all...My palate was sated…Nostrils stimulated…standing venerated " [closed]
Hello English is not my first language . I came across this sentence that i don't understand :
I once had it all...My palate was sated…Nostrils stimulated…standing venerated
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The meaning of "The paradox of courage is that a man must be a little careless of his life even in order to keep it." — G. K. Chesterton
I recently came across this quote by G. K. Chesterton.
The paradox of courage is that a man must be a little careless of his life even in order to keep it.
(Note that the version I initially saw ...
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Etymologically, how did 'outrage' get 're-analyzed'?
Wiktionary:
From... Old French... oultrage (“excess”)... derived from Latin ultrā (“beyond”). Later reanalysed as out- + rage, whence the contemporary pronunciation, though neither of these is ...
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Meaning of "teen" in Aeschylus's play "The Persians"
I came across the phrase "how shall I bear my teen?" in Aeschylus' play "The Persians". I also saw "the children of teen" in "Seven against Thebes". What ...
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Galloping incompetence & galloping ineptitude
Is it correct to use "galloping" as a synonym of "extreme"? For example, I often see "galloping incompetence" and "galloping ineptitude".
But Merriam Webster's ...
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Meaning of "swindle" in "…while four to five days in London would be suitable to swindle across the streets" [closed]
I came across this sentence in a blog. Is the 'swindle' being used correctly? If yes, what does it mean in this sentence?
In most cases, three to four days in Paris would be enough to skim through ...
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Meaning of "by a sort of flying sap" [closed]
(From The Wrecker by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne, Chapter XIX, published 1892)
Passage 304
I will never deny that our prolonged conjunction was the result of double cowardice. Each was ...
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Games people play [migrated]
Eric Berne wrote his famous book ”Games People Play.”
Has this title other meaning than People play games?
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Meaning of "not without parts" [closed]
(From The Wrecker by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne, Chapter XIX, published 1892)
Passage 298
Such was our first interview, the first of many; and in all he showed the same attractive ...
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What's the meaning of "jolly weezer" on the show WW2BAM?
A TV presenter of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" lamented it would be a "jolly weezer" if the man made less than his wife on a game show. What did he mean?
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Meaning of "the usual 'get to know you' banter" [migrated]
What exactly does "'get to know you' banter" mean in this phrase:
Emma arrives. Their dialogue consists primarily of the usual “get to know you” banter.
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The difference between [migrated]
Is there a difference between
He walks so slow
And
He walks so slowly
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Is 'bold' used correctly here? "This aspect of this issue seems bolder than the rest." [migrated]
I've been having a little bit of a debate with one of my friends about the correct use of a word. I hope the native English speakers can help me put an end to this :)
I know the word "bold" ...
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"Ay me" origins and usage?
I have been recently reading Romeo and Juliet, and towards the beginning of the balcony scene, Juliet says
Ay me.
What does this phrase mean and when was it first created/used?
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What does "gadget" really mean?
In finding this article, I questioned my understanding of the word 'gadget'.
My current understanding is the word is (and please let me know in your answer if I'm right or wrong on this one) ...
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Can 'to wilt' be something positive? [closed]
I came across (a pretty sad) poem by Meggie Royer.
She writes:
I stood by as strangers stroked her muzzle and she wilted beneath their touch like she did once for mine.
For context: she writes about ...
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What meaning of "off" is used in "bedrooms off the hallway"?
I've read some description of certain house design as below:
Living and dining rooms are towards the front with kitchens to the rear, with bedrooms either off the hallway or upstairs if it's a two-...
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“I am fourteen past”
"My name is Helena, and I am fourteen past."
I found the line in My New Home by Mrs. Molesworth. I don't know what it means, and why it ends with past.
I know time expressions like “Half ...
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Is there a word for the ability to communicate in a manner that makes it easy to be empathised?
To "empathize" with someone means to
"understand and share the feelings of another" (Oxford dictionary).
In science fiction, an "empath" is
"a person with the ...
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what does the word "another" refers to in the sentence : "he could not forget or pardon a lapse in another"? [migrated]
I am quoting from The Return of Sherlock Holmes, The Second Stain, by Arthur Conan Doyle : “Mr. Holmes, I will tell you everything,” cried the lady. “Oh, Mr. Holmes, I would cut off my right hand ...
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Would not 'armistice' be a better word to use than 'pause' in present discussions of 'ceasefire'?
In the current situation, there are calls for a 'ceasefire' and calls for a 'pause'.
Humanitarian pauses and ceasefires – what are the differences?
Chatham House org
But there exists a better word ...
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What does 'that looks about it' mean?
(I'm South Korean, so non-native question here.)
I saw the sentence 'that looks about it'.
Does it mean that something is seemingly almost done?
I searched this expression on google but I couldn't ...
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When did the word 'palatable' start being used for not-related-to-food things?
I'm trying to trace back the etymology of 'palatable', but what I'm really looking for is the process of semantic expression over time. When did the word begin to be used to speak of things unrelated ...
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What is the difference between "Chinese-Canadian" and "Canadian-Chinese"?
What is the difference between a "Chinese-Canadian" and a "Canadian-Chinese"?
Do I understand correctly that the first part of such phrases will show the origin of a person, and ...
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“Core” as the name of a class in school
When I was in middle school (roughly ages 10–13 years old) in the US in the early 1970s, they combined English—or what might now be called language arts—with social studies into a single class that ...
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Does "I'm gonna get it" mean that I'm going to get scolded or punished? [migrated]
As per the title: is I'm gonna get it an idiomatic, fixed expression? I cannot find any reference online where they provide a definition/explanation of such an expression.
I'm almost certain that in ...
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What is the difference between “To every action” and “For every action”?
Here are two statements:
The first statement is: To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction.
The second statement is: For every action there is always an equal and opposite ...
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What does "make the Iacke go" mean?
The introduction to the first folio has the phrase "make the Iacke go." The I is almost certainly a J, but I don't recognise the word/name Jacke. What could it mean?
The text is given here ...
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What does "1C18" mean? [closed]
In Raymond Williams's Keywords (pdf here), one can read:
Culture as an independent noun, an abstract process or the product of
such a process, is not important before 1C18 and is not common before
...
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Problems with understanding a requirement in a technical document
I'm following the advice of a user who answered a question on StackOverflow.
Page 15 section 4.A.4 of NIST call for proposal (the 2016 one) says:
For the purpose of estimating security strengths, it ...
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Is it idiomatic to say "call of the blood"?
I've been struggling with this one...
I'm trying to figure out whether it's okay to use the expression "call of the blood" to describe the phenomenon of doing something naturally (or coming ...
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How to distinguish these two senses of characteristic or attribute?
There are two different senses in which we use the word "attribute"; for example, I can describe someone as "blond", which is a hair color. We say "blond" is a ...
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"my stomach told me" VS "my guts told me"
I'm an English learner and I came across this sentence:
My stomach told me that this was unprecedented.
Does this expression mean that I had a feeling or my instincts told me that something that had ...
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What is the meaning of "the granite moulding of the inflexible jaw"?
I am quoting from the Return of Sherlock Holmes, The Missing Three Quarter by Arthur Conan Doyle :
"Yet even without knowing his brilliant record one could not fail to be impressed by a mere ...
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