meaning

plural meanings

1. countableuncountableexpressions or symbolsThe denotation, referent, or idea connected with a word, expression, or symbol.

   Elbows almost touching they leaned at ease, idly reading the almost obliterated lines engraved there. ¶ "I never understood it," she observed, lightly scornful. "What occult meaning has a sun-dial for the spooney? I'm sure I don't want to read riddles in a strange gentleman's optics."

   1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter VIII, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC

   Synonyms: value, signification, acceptation, definition, parsing, sense

2. countableuncountableexpressions or symbolsThe connotation associated with a word, expression, or symbol.

   Synonyms: value, signification, significance, flavor, implication, import, insinuation, tone

3. countableuncountableThe purpose, value, or significance (of something) beyond the fact of that thing's existence.

   the meaning of life

   2 more examples

   Near-synonyms: meaningfulness, point, purpose, significance, use

   The number of persons attending the vigil had a lot of meaning to the families.

   Synonyms: meaningfulness, point, purpose, significance, use · Antonyms: meaninglessness, pointlessness, purposelessness, uselessness, randomness

4. countableuncountableIntention.

   It was their meaning to take what they needed by strong hand.

   c. 1610?, Walter Raleigh, A Discourse of War

   1 more example

   […] there was nothing in the house, what there was, was broken, the last people must have lived like pigs, what could the meaning of the landlord be?

   1859, Charles Dickens, The Haunted House

   Synonyms: aim, goal, intent, plan, purport

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of mean

   Chinghung, meaning “City of the Dawn” in the Tai language, the capital of the Hsishuangpanna Tai Autonomous Chou, lies in an agricultural area on the lower Lantsang.

   A Concise Geography of China

   1964, Jen Yu-ti [任育地], “The Southwest Region”, in 中国地理概述 [A Concise Geography of China], Peking: Foreign Languages Press, →OCLC, page 181

   1 more example

   Turbines have been around for a long time—windmills and water wheels are early examples. The name comes from the Latin turbo, meaning vortex, and thus the defining property of a turbine is that a fluid or gas turns the blades of a rotor, which is attached to a shaft that can perform useful work.

   2013 July-August, Lee S. Langston, “The Adaptable Gas Turbine”, in American Scientist, archived from the original on 07 Sep 2013

comparative more meaning · superlative most meaning

1. Having a (specified) intention.

   Well/ill meaning.

2. Expressing some intention or significance; meaningful.

   There was a meaning pause, broken by old Stein again clapping his hands.

   1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 243

   2 more examples

   I might, to-day, have been a better, and thus a happier man, had I less frequently rejected the counsels embodied in those meaning whispers which I then but too cordially hated and too bitterly despised.

   1839, Edgar Allan Poe, William Wilson

   [T]he new friends […] knew nothing and did not particularly care to hear about the beautiful mother with her long, meaning looks and liquid dresses and distant smile.

   1978, Jane Gardam, God on the Rocks, Abacus, published 2014, page 160