Skip to main content
English Language & Usage

Questions tagged [meaning]

Ask Question

This tag is for questions related to definitions and nuances of meaning of a word or phrase.

17,242 questions
Newest Active Bountied Unanswered
Filter by
Sorted by
Tagged with
6 votes
11 answers
9k views

I am looking for a compound noun that has a meaning that is completely (or very) different from the words it is derived from. This because I want to give an example of how powerful the human brain is ...
Ada Roxx's user avatar
  • 1
6 votes
1 answer
157 views

A notorious incident in Bentley family history is when William, the first Bentley in America, murdered his neighbor Thomas Godby on February 9th, 1628. The incident was detailed at trial. A witness ...
Anthony J. Bentley's user avatar
  • 159
-4 votes
2 answers
64 views

I found a sentence: I meant '\keys_set:nn'. By 'nothing', I mean 'nothing the latex people would approve'. I'm not very clear the meaning of "by nothing", please help explain.
Lambie's user avatar
  • 17.4k
0 votes
1 answer
38 views

What does the bolded phrase mean from the book The Lady's Maid by Rosina Harrison? The staff at the Tuftons’ was one of the happiest I ever knew or saw, and when we all went up to Appleby Castle we ...
Toby Speight's user avatar
  • 1,535
0 votes
3 answers
1k views

I seem to always change my aesthetic, or at least fit into most aesthetics and adapt to them easily. This mainly affects my fashion and choice of wallpaper customization. For example, I'd be into a ...
Stev's user avatar
  • 167
-2 votes
1 answer
84 views

I keep seeing the words “service” and “consultation” used in different professional settings, but I’m not sure what the actual difference is. Does “consultation” just mean giving advice, while “...
KillingTime's user avatar
  • 6,426
10 votes
5 answers
3k views

What term describes a person who mostly/always remains ill due multiple factors, such as being surrounded by multiple diseases or due to an incurable chronic disease? Can I simply call that person as ...
Wastrel's user avatar
  • 825
3 votes
3 answers
3k views

I wrote Learning words is of paramount importance, when it comes to learning a second language e.g. English. How to learn English words effectively, is a question that usually bothers most of English ...
Community's user avatar
  • 1
9 votes
1 answer
1k views

From 'All Creatures, Great and Small' by James Herriot: “They [pigs] belted out through the yard door at full gallop.” “The yard door was open then?” “Too true it was. I would just choose this one ...
Rohit Gupta's user avatar
  • 811
-1 votes
0 answers
46 views

Which collocation or word is usually used in universities/colleges (especially medical ones) to refer to the kind of classes where: students stay at their university/college to work on their ...
accro à ABCD's user avatar
  • 45
3 votes
1 answer
3k views

First, "more than one" and "many" are acceptable meanings for "multiple." 1 : consisting of, including, or involving more than one: multiple births, multiple choices 2 : ...
Community's user avatar
  • 1
0 votes
3 answers
131 views

I encountered an unusual expression while playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. During this dialogue exchange, The characters say: – Hey, Old Reece still run the barber shop? – Like a ragged-assed ...
craneiac's user avatar
  • 9
6 votes
0 answers
798 views

I am reading Ethel Lina White’s novel Fear Stalks the Village, written in 1930s, and came across this passage: In spite of her short sight, the novelist was the best tennis player in the ...
tchrist's user avatar
  • 139k
0 votes
0 answers
143 views

I have never been able to determine a person's age. Aside from knowing they're a child, adult, or a mature adult (grey hair, wrinkles), I cannot determine an actual age. A 19-year old can look 40 to ...
Ahmed's user avatar
  • 5,733
17 votes
3 answers
28k views

Apparently, Yester cannot be used alone in a sentence, except when accompanied by "day" (yesterday) or "year" (yesteryear). It cannot be used incombination with other portions of ...
Enlico's user avatar
  • 161
3 votes
3 answers
347 views

Popper (1972, bold font added): It is very important to appreciate the huge difference between a thought that is only subjectively or privately thought or held to be true, which is a dispositional ...
jsw29's user avatar
  • 9,528
2 votes
2 answers
192 views

Our Science teacher called about tomorrow's mock science quiz - it's not cancelled. It's scheduled from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. instead of 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. The mock science quiz planned for the ...
jsw29's user avatar
  • 9,528
0 votes
5 answers
3k views

If you refer to people in a room, does that imply that those people are alive? If you said: People in a boardroom It is reasonable to assume they are alive, but I am not sure if its implied. ...
jsw29's user avatar
  • 9,528
15 votes
3 answers
111k views

I was wondering whether alma mater refers to all the schools you have been in, or just to the one from which you received your BA, BSc, or a similar degree? For example, suppose someone has an ...
jsw29's user avatar
  • 9,528
4 votes
2 answers
688 views

In a visual novel written in American English, I have found the following passage, as a character is describing the contents of his room, which is themed around car racing (emphasis is mine): Damon: ...
Mari-Lou A's user avatar
  • 95.1k
25 votes
4 answers
10k views

What is the term for a bullet hitting a bystander in a gunfight? When it misses the intended target and hits a bystander.
Louis Nagel's user avatar
  • 1
1 vote
1 answer
879 views

I am trying to see if the colloquial usage of night and day is non-standard and is improper register, or if it is simply an ommitted definition in the dictionaries: night and day: Describing a ...
John Giordano's user avatar
  • 1
9 votes
2 answers
509 views

The phrase Google Tree appears in St. Nicholas: An Illustrated Magazine for Young Folks from 1898 (starting on p. 35, or p. 49 of the pdf file): Both madly loved the Lily Maid, And better to decoy ...
Community's user avatar
  • 1
0 votes
2 answers
137 views

I am writing a title for a research paper on the political effects of exposure to a governmental media campaign, on young people's attitudes toward the government efforts, and its capacity in the ...
Community's user avatar
  • 1
-2 votes
1 answer
91 views

I'm trying to give advice to a foreigner about how to use "that's ok" but I want to make sure I'm not spreading disinfo. If you're given an offer and you respond with "that's ok", ...
Mary's user avatar
  • 4,476
2 votes
3 answers
118 views

The full poem: My Love is like to ice, and I to fire: How comes it then that this her cold so great Is not dissolved through my so hot desire, But harder grows the more I her entreat? Or how ...
TimR's user avatar
  • 1
4 votes
4 answers
2k views

This question popped up in my mind when I read following text from a Textbook of Medical Physiology, Guyton and Hall: The amount of food that a person ingests is determined principally by an ...
johnwbyrd's user avatar
  • 221
208 votes
16 answers
169k views

I keep getting the red underlining in Word whenever I write the word "performant". Here I intend to refer to something that performs well or better than something else (i.e., it's more performant). ...
jamspandex's user avatar
  • 17
14 votes
4 answers
81k views

Having just briefly looked at both in the OED there seems to me plenty of room for interchangeability in the way they are used. Under 'retrospective' for example there is an instance of legislation ...
RokeJulianLockhart's user avatar
  • 287
14 votes
6 answers
163k views

I most recently heard this in the context of a business deal: Sorry gents, looks like we'll be taking the piss on that one. I understood that the business had suffered a financial loss, although I ...
Jelila's user avatar
  • 5,783
9 votes
3 answers
2k views

Given the sentence She talked to him like a child. Could it be interpreted both ways: She talked like a child. and She talked to him as if he were a child. Or is it only the former?
Chris Sunami's user avatar
  • 20.3k
0 votes
3 answers
101 views

When the word “before” is used as a conjunction, does it take a relative clause after it? For example, in the sentence “a phenomenon never witnessed before which could be driven by rising temperatures,...
DW256's user avatar
  • 13.9k
5 votes
2 answers
375 views

I recently read the children's book Mr Mole Takes Charge (1967) by Jane Pilgrim. It includes the following line. "You will not be well enough to take your school on Monday," he said. I ...
Tinfoil Hat's user avatar
  • 22.7k
0 votes
1 answer
71 views

What does this sentence mean? What is it referring to?: "The opportunities of acquiring an abnormal thirst had been here limited" I'm reading Dracula by Bram Stoker via Dracula Daily, and ...
Araucaria - Him's user avatar
  • 50.2k
0 votes
2 answers
7k views

What is the difference between: He was walking along the street, and He was walking down the street ?
Martin Kealey's user avatar
  • 189
19 votes
6 answers
292k views

What does the term "street address" mean, as opposed to just "address"?
Martin Kealey's user avatar
  • 189
3 votes
1 answer
2k views

In Merriam–Webster, the definition of understand is as follows: to get the meaning of something / to grasp the meaning of something. Now my questions are regarding a sentence like: I don’t ...
Community's user avatar
  • 1
5 votes
4 answers
29k views

I am confused - what is difference between these words? Breaking Bad, True Detective are they series or serial? On popular streaming sites I can see only TV series or TV shows, does it mean that ...
Barmar's user avatar
  • 24.7k
0 votes
3 answers
237 views

In the comedy video at 3.41 the comedian says "If that doesn't cry I give up ... I don't know what does." Can someone kindly explain what the meaning of 'cry' in this situation, or the ...
Lambie's user avatar
  • 17.4k
1 vote
1 answer
118 views

From Bleak House: There was a light sparkling on the top of a hill before us, and the driver, pointing to it with his whip and crying, “That’s Bleak House!” put his horses into a canter and took us ...
Tinfoil Hat's user avatar
  • 22.7k
8 votes
6 answers
10k views

I recently heard the word banger used by a young man in Chicago to describe a catchy, up-beat song. Checking Green's Dictionary of Slang, I found a definition attested in 2016 that to my mind seems a ...
Sven Yargs's user avatar
  • 174k
2 votes
2 answers
253 views

I was watching stand up comedy (https://youtu.be/Mdw2b_RJeCA?si=CfXUDe7vSTQnxDcE), and at 0.40 I heard the comedian say “my daughter came down the stairs and you could smell the urine baking off of ...
sleeper54's user avatar
  • 1
-1 votes
5 answers
174 views

If I wanted to say 'Could you explain why this is your opinion?' could I say 'Could you justify your opinion?' Or would that either (i) be wrong or (ii) convey a different meaning? To my ear the ...
Tuffy's user avatar
  • 11.8k
4 votes
8 answers
57k views

What does the phrase mean in "He annoys me to no end"? Literally, does it mean that he annoys me forever? Or does it mean that he annoys me to no result?
TimR's user avatar
  • 1
3 votes
1 answer
612 views

The 'fly', generally, in relation to clothing, designates the flap of cloth which covers the zip or buttons at the front of trousers. But the word is also used to designate the 'fly plaid' a piece of ...
Nigel J's user avatar
  • 25.2k
4 votes
3 answers
12k views

In "How I met your mother" they played a road game called "zitch did" (or possibly "zitchdog"). Is there such a word as "zitch" (or possibly "zitchdog")?
Ebrahim Mehri's user avatar
  • 1
3 votes
5 answers
4k views

Am I interpreting the results correctly? Do I interpret the results correctly? Do they have the same meaning? Are both or just one correct?
Community's user avatar
  • 1
2 votes
6 answers
525 views

My question is specifically about multi-storey structures with several parts that have separate entrances and are not connected in the interior. Here is an example, I found in Glasgow on Google Maps : ...
Mark Foskey's user avatar
  • 2,375
3 votes
1 answer
3k views

span the period of time that sometimes exists or happens period a length of time That said, I still don't see the difference. I have the following exercise in my schoolbook: The course would have ...
Community's user avatar
  • 1
1 vote
0 answers
100 views

When I played pinball and lost, the screen would flash "Game Over." But I thought it meant I earned a new game and could play for free (the exact opposite): What is the philological term for ...
Andrew Leach's user avatar
  • 104k

1
2 3 4 5
…
345