In Logic, the letter A is used as a symbol for theuniversal affirmative proposition in the general form "all x is y."
1922,Henry Ford,Samuel Crowther, chapter4, inMy Life and Work, Garden City, New York: Garden City Publishing Company, Inc.,→OCLC:
I had been planning every day through these years toward auniversal car.
1955 January, Charles E. Lee, “The Glasgow Underground Railway”, inRailway Magazine, page24:
Eventually, the railway opened on Monday, December 14, 1896, with auniversal fare of 1d. collected at the turnstiles, and conditions were immediately chaotic, as many passengers travelled round and round, and refused to leave the cars.
2022 January 30, Steve Slevinski, “Formal SignWriting”, inIETF[1], archived fromthe original on30 April 2024:
Sutton SignWriting is theuniversal and complete solution for written sign language, ISO 15924 script code "Sgnw".
a.1701 (date written), John Dryden, “The Life of John Dryden, Esq.”, inThe Miscellaneous Works of John Dryden,[…], volume I, London:[…]J[acob] and R[ichard] Tonson,[…], published1760,→OCLC,page xiii:
[John] Dryden'suniverſal genius, his firmly eſtablished reputation, and the glory his memory muſt always reflect upon the nation that gave him birth, make us ardently wiſh for a more accurate life of him than any which has hitherto appeared:[…]
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions atWiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
When we examine common words, we find that, broadly speaking, proper names stand for particulars, while other substantives, adjectives, prepositions, and verbs stand foruniversals.
We might also distinguish those expressions which are used to refer to individuals or particulars from those which are used to refer to what philosophers have calleduniversals: e.g., to distinguish such expressions as "Everest" and "this chair" from "the number three", "the color red" and "drunkenness".
Empiricism was similarly a response to this loss ofuniversals—a radically contingent world with no underlying order must constantly be studied and tested—and made God himself unnecessary: divine spirit and human spirit were alien enough to each other that they could function without taking each other into account.
1 When an adjective is applied predicatively to something definite, the corresponding "indefinite" form is used. 2 The "indefinite" superlatives may not be used attributively.
