Etymology From Middle English mening, menyng, equivalent to mean + -ing. Cognate with Scots mening (“intent, purpose, sense, meaning”), West Frisian miening (“opinion, mind”), Dutch mening (“view, opinion, judgement”), German Meinung (“opinion, view, mind, idea”), Danish and Swedish mening (“meaning, sense, sentence, opinion”), Icelandic meining (“meaning”).
1
Of words The denotation, referent, or idea connected with a word, expression, or symbol.
Expressions or symbols
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:
2
Of words The connotation associated with a word, expression, or symbol.
Expressions or symbols
3
The purpose, value, or significance (of something) beyond the fact of that thing's existence.
Near-synonyms: meaningfulness, point, purpose, significance, use
the meaning of life
1 more example
The number of persons attending the vigil had a lot of meaning to the families.
4
Of a person's actions Intention.
It was their meaning to take what they needed by strong hand.c. 1610?, Walter Raleigh, A Discourse of War:
[…] 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:
Expressing some intention or significance; meaningful.
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:
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:
1 more example
[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: