It is true, common use, by a tacit consent, appropriates certain sounds to certain ideas in all languages, which so far limits the signification of that sound, that unless a man applies it to the same idea, he does not speak properly: and let me add, that unless a man's words excite the same ideas in the hearer which he makes them stand for in speaking, he does not speak intelligibly.

This name is probably meant to imply the Trucheman, Dragoman, or interpreter; and from the strange appellative, Man of God, he may have been a monk from Constantinople, with a Greek name, having that signification: perhaps TheanderE. Cherson or Kersona, called likewise Scherson, Schursi, and Gurzi.

And therefore he that has not before received into his mind, by the proper inlet, the simple idea which any word stands for, can never come to know the signification of that word by any other words or sounds whatsoever, put together according to any rules of definition.

Fourthly, But though the names of simple ideas have not the help of definition to determine their signification, yet that hinders not but that they are generally less doubtful and uncertain than those of mixed modes and substances; because they, standing only for one simple perception, men for the most part easily and perfectly agree in their signification; and there is little room for mistake and wrangling about their meaning.

He, no doubt, gave a Wide signification to the term 'tactics,' and used it as embracing all that is included in the phrase 'conduct of war.'

"An Irony is dissembling or changing the proper signification of a word or sentence to quite the contrary.

Secondly, The learning and disputes of the schools having been much busied about genus and species, the word essence has almost lost its primary signification: and, instead of the real constitution of things, has been almost wholly applied to the artificial constitution of genus and species.

There are scarce any of them that are not cumbered with some difficulties (such is the imperfection of human knowledge,) which they have been fain to cover with obscurity of terms, and to confound the signification of words, which, like a mist before people's eyes, might hinder their weak parts from being discovered.

This may show us the reason why, in the defining of words, which is nothing but declaring their signification, we make use of the GENUS, or next general word that comprehends it.

"An article is a part of speech set before nouns to fix their vague Signification.

Thirdly, for the explaining the signification of the names of substances, as they stand for the ideas we have of their distinct species, both the forementioned ways, viz. of showing and defining, are requisite, in many cases, to be made use of.

6. On the other side, the names of substances, when made use of as they should be, for the ideas men have in their minds, though they carry a clear and determinate signification with them, will not yet serve us to make many universal propositions of whose truth we can be certain.

A groom meant a man, then a stableman (in bridegroom, however, it preserves the old signification).

And hence we see that, in the interpretation of laws, whether divine or human, there is no end; comments beget comments, and explications make new matter for explications; and of limiting, distinguishing, varying the signification of these moral words there is no end.

But since the essences of things are thought by some (and not without reason) to be wholly unknown, it may not be amiss to consider the several significations of the word ESSENCE.

Compounded or double words I have seldom noted, except when they obtain a signification different from that which the components have in their simple state.

Good is in truth so general a term that we must know the attendant circumstances if we are to attach to it a signification even approximately accurate.

It is the business of the punster to discover and yoke together two words, which, while they have some resemblance in sound, the more exact the better, convey a totally different signification.

In all cases where there is no word in our language which expresses the signification of the Greek, as in the names of weights and measures, Mr. Sawyer substitutes for the language of the common version the foreign word of the original,sometimes merely giving the orthography of the Greek in English letters, sometimes affixing a termination,and frequently he adds, in brackets, an explanation of his rendering.

Study the influence of the key-syllable upon the meaning of each separate word; find the word's original signification, its present signification.

Because the names of mixed modes for the most part WANT STANDARDS IN NATURE, whereby men may rectify and adjust their significations; therefore they are very various and doubtful.

Thenceforward the term "contraband" bore a new signification, with which it will pass into history, designating the negroes who had been held as slaves, now adopted under the protection of the Government.

To avoid, however, affixing a passive signification to the participle in ing, an attempt has lately been made to substitute the passive participle in its place.

A vocabulary made after this fashion would perhaps with more ease, and in less time, teach the true signification of many terms, especially in languages of remote countries or ages, and settle truer ideas in men's minds of several things, whereof we read the names in ancient authors, than all the large and laborious comments of learned critics.

But even if this be true as regards its earlier application, it may well be questioned, whether by frequency of use it has not acquired a signification which makes it proper at the present time.