| Library / English Dictionary |
CUSTOMS
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Money collected under a tariff
Synonyms:
custom; customs; customs duty; impost
Classified under:
Nouns denoting possession and transfer of possession
Hypernyms ("customs" is a kind of...):
duty; tariff (a government tax on imports or exports)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "customs"):
ship money (an impost levied in England to provide money for ships for national defense)
Context examples:
"And it seems to me," Martin continued, "that knowledge of the land question, in turn, of all questions, for that matter, cannot be had without previous knowledge of the stuff and the constitution of life. How can we understand laws and institutions, religions and customs, without understanding, not merely the nature of the creatures that made them, but the nature of the stuff out of which the creatures are made? Is literature less human than the architecture and sculpture of Egypt? Is there one thing in the known universe that is not subject to the law of evolution? Oh, I know there is an elaborate evolution of the various arts laid down, but it seems to me to be too mechanical. The human himself is left out. The evolution of the tool, of the harp, of music and song and dance, are all beautifully elaborated; but how about the evolution of the human himself, the development of the basic and intrinsic parts that were in him before he made his first tool or gibbered his first chant? It is that which you do not consider, and which I call biology. It is biology in its largest aspects.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
But there was that in him deeper than all the law he had learned, than the customs that had moulded him, than his love for the master, than the very will to live of himself; and when, in the moment of his indecision, Collie nipped him and scampered off, he turned and followed after.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
I shall understand all your ways in time; but, coming down with the true London maxim, that everything is to be got with money, I was a little embarrassed at first by the sturdy independence of your country customs.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
The customs and the octroi, if there be any, have been avoided.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
Nay, Sir John, said the prince reprovingly, all peoples have their own use and customs.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Whether those pleading orators were persons educated in the general knowledge of equity, or only in provincial, national, and other local customs?
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
I had hitherto attended the schools of Geneva, but my father thought it necessary for the completion of my education that I should be made acquainted with other customs than those of my native country.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
Not being a belle or even a fashionable lady, Meg did not experience this affliction till her babies were a year old, for in her little world primitive customs prevailed, and she found herself more admired and beloved than ever.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
The books were of the most varied kind—history, geography, politics, political economy, botany, geology, law—all relating to England and English life and customs and manners.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
I am but a poor commoner of England myself, and yet I know something of charters, liberties, franchises, usages, privileges, customs, and the like.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
