many a
det1
Being one of a large number, each one of many; belonging to an aggregate or category, considered singly as one of a kind.
- There is many a true word spoken in jest.
- Many a flower is born to blush unseen.
4 more examples
- Know then that God, to the end He be not thought, / A powerless judge, here plagueth many a fault, / And many a fault leaves here unpunished, / That men may also His last judgment dread.1608–1641, Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas, edited by Theron Wilber Haight, The Divine Weeks of Josuah Sylvester, Waukesha, Wis., USA: H. M. Youmans, published 1908, page 150:
- If the 250,000 miners, which threaten to stop work, go out on strike there is likely to be many an idle mill beside the water courses and many a factory with silent spindles.1908 April 11, “The Coal-Miners and the Wage-Scale”, in The Literary Digest, volume 36, number 15, page 507:
- So this was my future home, I thought! Certainly it made a brave picture. I had seen similar ones fired-in on many a Heidelberg stein. Backed by towering hills,[…]a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:
- Many a crime has being committed in its name: there are some being committed now.1914, David Lloyd George, The Great War, Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, Limited, page 3:
- Derived terms
- many a mickle makes a muckle, many a time and oft, many a time and often, many a time, many a times, there's many a good tune played on an old fiddle, there's many a slip between the cup and the lip, there's many a slip twixt cup and lip, there's many a slip twixt the cup and the lip
- Related terms
- a fair booty makes many a thief, many another, nary a