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MAXIM
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A saying that is widely accepted on its own merits
Synonyms:
axiom; maxim
Classified under:
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents
Hypernyms ("maxim" is a kind of...):
expression; locution; saying (a word or phrase that particular people use in particular situations)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "maxim"):
aphorism; apophthegm; apothegm (a short pithy instructive saying)
gnome (a short pithy saying expressing a general truth)
moralism (a moral maxim)
Sense 2
Meaning:
English inventor (born in the United States) who invented the Maxim gun that was used in World War I (1840-1916)
Synonyms:
Maxim; Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim
Classified under:
Instance hypernyms:
artificer; discoverer; inventor (someone who is the first to think of or make something)
Context examples:
Perhaps, then, you would bestow it as a reward on that person who wrote the ablest defence of your favourite maxim, that no one can ever be in love more than once in their life—your opinion on that point is unchanged, I presume?
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
As these noble Houyhnhnms are endowed by nature with a general disposition to all virtues, and have no conceptions or ideas of what is evil in a rational creature, so their grand maxim is, to cultivate reason, and to be wholly governed by it.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
It is a maxim among these lawyers that whatever has been done before, may legally be done again: and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice, and the general reason of mankind.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
I had indeed heard and read enough of the dispositions of great princes and ministers, but never expected to have found such terrible effects of them, in so remote a country, governed, as I thought, by very different maxims from those in Europe.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
Although we usually call reward and punishment the two hinges upon which all government turns, yet I could never observe this maxim to be put in practice by any nation except that of Lilliput.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
Thus the young ladies are as much ashamed of being cowards and fools as the men, and despise all personal ornaments, beyond decency and cleanliness: neither did I perceive any difference in their education made by their difference of sex, only that the exercises of the females were not altogether so robust; and that some rules were given them relating to domestic life, and a smaller compass of learning was enjoined them: for their maxim is, that among peoples of quality, a wife should be always a reasonable and agreeable companion, because she cannot always be young.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
Therefore, since my acquaintance were pleased to think my poor endeavours might not be unacceptable to my country, I imposed on myself, as a maxim never to be swerved from, that I would strictly adhere to truth; neither indeed can I be ever under the least temptation to vary from it, while I retain in my mind the lectures and example of my noble master and the other illustrious Houyhnhnms of whom I had so long the honour to be an humble hearer.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
