Cambridge Dictionary:
📚 Winkle-picker, noun.
❓ Definition (British • informal): A shoe with a long pointed toe, popular in the 1950s.
❗️ Examples:
1. Like many young people I ignored advice not to wear winkle-pickers, stilettoes and high platforms, and boy am I paying for it.
2. The tiniest kitten heels in the world, and toes like winkle-pickers.
3. If you were a mod you had to wear winkle-pickers.
4. The days of rock-star wannabe, red winkle-pickers and embarrassing 1980s garb are long gone and Kerr leads a sophisticated life.
5. I'm like those women who discovered beehives and winkle-pickers back in the 1950s and still sport them today.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Take something up, phrasal verb.
❓ Definition: Accept an offer or challenge.
❗️ Examples:
1. So many couples took the city up on its surprise offer that, by late afternoon, overwhelmed officials told new applicants to return yesterday.
2. Nine or 10 of the lads, myself included, took the manager up on his kind offer.
3. I took the train up in the morning, spent three hours or so doing the usual rounds of presentation and schmoozing, and then I thought I would take my host up on her offer to see the sights.
4. I believe it is harder, in this culture at this time, to write well about characters who do good, and so I believe that is a challenge thrown down before a writer, and I try to take that challenge up in my own way.
5. It is in all our interests that his invitation is taken up.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Come off it, phrase.
❓ Definition (informal): Said when vigorously expressing disbelief.
❗️ Examples:
1. Come off it, he'll know that's a lie.
2. Indeed, she claims that there is an unspoken English rule that she calls the importance of not being earnest, along with a peculiarly English injunction to say, Oh, come off it!
3. Come off it, that's not something worth remembering.
4. My honest (and admittedly, somewhat cruel) reaction is Oh, come off it, you're not that special.
5. Oh come off it, mate, he said, because he is not only a hawk, but has a keen and impatient mind.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Mugger, noun.
🔉 /ˈmʌɡə/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition: A person who attacks and robs another in a public place.
❗️ Examples:
1. The mugger snatched my purse and ran away.
2. They are burglars, dealers, vandals, thugs, muggers, arsonists, a menace to society.
3. A gang of muggers attacked a man 6ft 8in tall and stole his mobile phone as he walked home after a night out in Trowbridge.
4. A passing couple saw the attack and chased the mugger, but he managed to get away.
5. He was one of the muggers that was attacking that woman.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Prejudice, noun.
🔉 /ˈprɛdʒʊdɪs/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (mass noun): Preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.
❗️ Examples:
1. English prejudice against foreigners.
2. Deep-rooted class prejudices.
3. Some prejudices (preconceived opinions of an individual based on opinions about the many) have names such as racism, sexism, or ageism.
4. Preconceived notions are prejudices about what is supposed to happen during the ritual, or the way in which the ritual must be done.
5. As a straight woman with my own prejudices and preconceptions, I fall somewhere in between.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Winkle-picker, noun.
❓ Definition (British • informal): A shoe with a long pointed toe, popular in the 1950s.
❗️ Examples:
1. Like many young people I ignored advice not to wear winkle-pickers, stilettoes and high platforms, and boy am I paying for it.
2. The tiniest kitten heels in the world, and toes like winkle-pickers.
3. If you were a mod you had to wear winkle-pickers.
4. The days of rock-star wannabe, red winkle-pickers and embarrassing 1980s garb are long gone and Kerr leads a sophisticated life.
5. I'm like those women who discovered beehives and winkle-pickers back in the 1950s and still sport them today.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Burn out, phrasal verb.
❓ Definition: Ruin one's health or become completely exhausted through overwork.
❗️ Examples:
1. Doing one task for too long can cause you to burn out.
2. A burned-out undercover cop.
3. She had died at the age of 45 from exhaustion, burnt out by the hardships of life.
4. But for a burned out cop like Mitch, it was just what the proverbial doctor had ordered.
5. Rather than improving technique, burned out dancers may report debilitating fatigue, loss of enthusiasm, and injuries.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Be just what the doctor ordered, phrase.
❓ Definition (informal): Be very beneficial or desirable under the circumstances.
❗️ Examples:
1. A 2–0 victory is just what the doctor ordered.
2. A media-savvy leader with a vision, with seriousness of purpose, with honesty and decisiveness as his strongest points, a diplomat par excellence, he is exactly what the doctor ordered.
3. The style is apparently a cross between ancient tragedy and TV news, which sounds like exactly what the doctor ordered for a sultry summer weeknight.
4. Meantime, let's just say that London is exactly what the doctor ordered - in other words, I am very happy to be here.
5. I know killer heels aren't exactly what the doctor ordered, but I'll take the psychological boost any day.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Thorough, adjective.
🔉 /ˈθʌrə/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition: Complete with regard to every detail; not superficial or partial.
❗️ Examples:
1. Planners need a thorough understanding of the subject.
2. Success in this environment requires a thorough understanding of systems theory.
3. Prevention only works when you have a thorough understanding about how and why things fail.
4. Whenever he was doing something in mathematics, he always strove to achieve a thorough understanding of the subject.
5. The experiences may lead to closer contact and more thorough understanding.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Absorb, verb.
🔉 /əbˈzɔːb/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (with object): Take up the attention of (someone); interest greatly.
❗️ Examples:
1. She sat in an armchair, absorbed in a book.
2. The work absorbed him and continued to make him happy.
3. I love being so absorbed in a book that I don't hear the things going on around me.
4. He hadn't heard her come up the stairs or enter the apartment he was so absorbed in his book.
5. She managed to make it look as if she were absorbed in the book when John threw her door open.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Butty, noun.
🔉 /ˈbʌti/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (Northern English • informal): A filled or open sandwich.
❗️ Examples:
1. A bacon butty.
2. You wouldn't make a chip buttie with these chips but they are so handy to have in the freezer.
3. It's no different to having a chip buttie or a crisp sandwich.
4. But it's here, over a cappuccino and a bacon buttie, that I meet Gianluca Bisol, whose family have been making prosecco for five generations.
5. So I've checked my email, made myself a bacon buttie, got ready for my day and still got into work for 08: 15.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Catch up with, phrasal verb.
❓ Definition: Talk to (someone) whom one has not seen for some time in order to find out what they have been doing.
❗️ Examples:
1. It's a chance to catch up with old friends.
2. Two female former schoolmates whom I caught up with two weeks ago also found themselves single recently.
3. Like all these things, it was a good chance to catch up with old friends!
4. Pat said the evening was a chance to catch up with old friends and was thoroughly enjoyable.
5. Still, it was great to catch up with so many old friends and workmates.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 The shape of things to come, phrase.
❓ Definition: The way the future is likely to develop.
❗️ Examples:
1. Unlike Agee, then, who was drawn to elegy, Martínez is drawn to prophecy: he sees the provinces as the future, the towns of Cherán and Warren as the shape of things to come.
2. Albeit clever, imaginative, notably fertile, this squeaky-voiced, scurrying little ladies' man, the prophet of the shape of things to come, fell short, in every sense, of his predecessor's measure.
3. Every day, a creation takes place as new uses, new mistakes, new copy is generated, each creating a new meaning for the shape of things to come.
4. For those of you living off-campus already, enjoy a stroll down memory lane; for the residents, beware of the shape of things to come.
5. He predicted no end to the poetic image, for the central aim of poetry is to insinuate the shape of things to come, and that is a perpetual process.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Disrupt, verb.
🔉 /dɪsˈrʌpt/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (with object): Interrupt (an event, activity, or process) by causing a disturbance or problem.
❗️ Examples:
1. Flooding disrupted rail services.
2. It only defers its end by disrupting the social event with which it begins.
3. The contest became a target in 1970 when women protesters disrupted the event.
4. Arrangements also have to be made for visitors to view it, without disrupting the daily activities of the embassy.
5. The roof structure itself can be added on to, again, without disrupting the ongoing activities of the airport.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Come at, phrasal verb.
❓ Definition: Launch oneself at (someone) to attack them.
❗️ Examples:
1. He shot an officer who came at him from behind.
2. You can even lift opponents in the air, swing them around and then come at them in a vertical attack.
3. One theory is that a fly cannot cope with two threats at once, so coming at it with two hands, from opposite sides, often catches it out.
4. He could see him coming at him in his sleep for weeks after.
5. I found him coming at me, and I decided to show him the outside.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Witter, verb.
🔉 /ˈwɪtə/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (British • informal • no object): Speak at length about trivial matters.
❗️ Examples:
1. She'd been wittering on about Jennifer and her illness.
2. He can, according to those who know him, witter on about pretty much anything, and at ear-numbing length.
3. Nevertheless, La Girnie witters: I'm amazed that there haven't been complaints from the militant feministas and their sisters that the sculpture fails to include a female.
4. Instead of lauding the likes of Mr Van Buitenen and Ms Andresen, he attacks them; instead of rooting out fraud, he witters on about non-existent success.
5. It witters on unconvincingly that having next of kin makes the decision less sovereign to the individual involved.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Come down, phrasal verb.
❓ Definition: Be handed down by tradition or inheritance.
❗️ Examples:
1. The name has come down from the last century.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Make common cause, phrase.
❓ Definition: Unite in order to achieve a shared aim.
❗️ Examples:
1. Nationalist movements made common cause with the reformers.
2. Let the humanists make common cause with them to achieve freedom.
3. Today, I'd like to offer a few thoughts on what these developments have meant for your colleagues in public broadcasting, and share some ideas about how our institutions might make common cause in the future.
4. As a hunter-gatherer nation, Australia could play a further role in world affairs by making common cause without a hunter-gatherer peoples, all of whom are taking a terrible hammering.
5. On certain foreign policy issues, Switzerland and Bulgaria have a track record of making common cause.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Absolve, verb.
🔉 /əbˈzɒlv/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (with object): Declare (someone) free from guilt, obligation, or punishment.
❗️ Examples:
1. The pardon absolved them of any crimes.
2. Recovering, he is absolved of his guilt by the understanding daughter.
3. At the same time, the right to free speech does not absolve us from our duty to behave responsibly.
4. Zoë, as loving in her death as she was in her life, tried to absolve her family from guilt.
5. There, he says, the cost of calling you or attaching a note to the bottle was low, hence the supplier's failure to secure your consent absolves you of all obligation to pay.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Banana, adjective.
🔉 /bəˈnɑːnə/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (bananas): Insane or extremely silly.
❗️ Examples:
1. I've spent two months in a studio — I must be bananas.
2. She went bananas when I said I was going to leave the job.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Magnolious, adjective.
🔉 /maɡˈnəʊlɪəs/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (informal, dated): Very good; magnificent.
❗️ Examples:
1. With many thanks again and wishes for your magnolious expansiveness.
2. Just yesterday I heard there's some magnolious chances out in Cincinnati.
3. He was approached by a large man in a magnolious coat and Abraham Lincolnesque silk hat.
4. We won a magnolious victory.
5. She found herself seated next to a stout lady dressed in a magnolious costume of gaudy satin.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Take something up, phrasal verb.
❓ Definition: Pursue a matter later or further.
❗️ Examples:
1. He'll have to take it up with the bishop.
2. If the matter is not resolved locally, the associations could take it up with Garda Headquarters.
3. You will be starting a bit earlier today, if that is a problem, take it up with Master Shay.
4. This is a matter for us to consider and we will take it up with the principals concerned.
5. If you wish to change legislation, why don't you take it up with the relevant authority?
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Transfusion, noun.
🔉 /ˌtransˈfjuːʒ(ə)n/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition: An act of transferring donated blood, blood products, or other fluid into the circulatory system of a person or animal.
❗️ Examples:
1. Major bleeding necessitating transfusions.
2. Transfusion is necessary in some circumstances.
3. Before death, the organ donor received several transfusions of blood products.
4. She was treated with intravenous folinic acid and antibiotics and was given transfusions of blood products.
5. Whenever possible, transfusions of all blood products should be limited.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Apprentice, noun.
🔉 /əˈprɛntɪs/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition: A person who is learning a trade from a skilled employer, having agreed to work for a fixed period at low wages.
❗️ Examples:
1. An apprentice electrician.
2. It doesn't matter how much money we give employers to take on apprentices in tradition trades - in gas fitting, in tiling, in welding and carpentry.
3. It is often asserted that by keeping wages low for apprentices, employers will automatically take more on.
4. This language has an old-fashioned ring, and was designed for a minor becoming an apprentice in a skilled trade.
5. They also sought to limit the number of apprentices entering their trades, because of the inevitable consequence of depressing wage rates; this has remained a feature of some craft unions to this day.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Fulla, noun.
🔉 /ˈfʊlə/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (New Zealand • informal): Used as a familiar term of address for a boy or man.
❗️ Examples:
1. I'll hopefully catch up with some of you fullas too.
2. I've been doing this since I was a young fulla.
3. There's this shared pride at how far the little fulla has come.
4. This bloody fulla was running alongside me.
5. His father was the "old fulla when Tui was the young fulla" at the trucking depot.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Hit on, phrasal verb.
❓ Definition: Discover or think of, especially by chance.
❗️ Examples:
1. She hit on a novel idea for fund-raising.
2. Substitute fire for water in Robbins' hypothesis and we may be hitting upon a parallel discovery.
3. Whether it was by chance or design Sam Allardyce has hit upon the strike force he has craved all season.
4. They hit upon the idea of creating a rare type of red hair dye and offering it for sale in small quantities.
5. To prove the point, upon his return Rory hit upon the idea of doing a programme for BBC Radio 4.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Fight or flight, phrase.
❓ Definition: The instinctive physiological response to a threatening situation, which readies one either to resist forcibly or to run away.
❗️ Examples:
1. I'm sure you've heard of fight or flight in a stressful situation.
2. Humans, like all animals, have an inborn stress alarm system that initiates a fight or flight response to stressful situations.
3. It's true, when you feel that your life might be in danger your natural instinct is fight or flight.
4. In that situation, an animal has two choices - fight or flight.
5. This is when those who haven't punched a ticket feel fight or flight in their bellies.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Chase, verb.
🔉 /tʃeɪs/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (with object): Pursue in order to catch or catch up with.
❗️ Examples:
1. Police chased the stolen car through the city.
2. The dog chased after the stick.
3. Police arrived and the group fled across fields but were caught when police chased them using a helicopter.
4. I chased after her and caught her left arm with my free hand, forcing her to stop.
5. She chased after her, catching her by the back of her skirt and pulling her to a halt on the second stair.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Thorough, adjective.
🔉 /ˈθʌrə/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition: Taking pains to do something carefully and completely.
❗️ Examples:
1. The British authorities are very thorough.
2. I'm trying very hard to be careful and thorough, and to present new information and new claims as they become available.
3. As a mathematician, Dodgson was rather conservative but certainly thorough and careful.
4. Eventually we will know these things, but we must be diligent, thorough, persistent and patient.
5. This does not mean that we will catch less - just be thorough and accurate with your groundbaiting and with your casting and the results will come.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Delate, verb.
🔉 /dɪˈleɪt/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (with object): Report (an offence or crime)
❗️ Examples:
1. They may delate my slackness to my patron.
2. They deliberated together on delating her as a witch.
3. He was delated to Rome for his writings on the laity and the shadow of suspicion was not lifted until he was made cardinal in 1878.
4. However, when he published On Consulting the Faithful, in Matters of Doctrine, it was delated to Rome, and he was charged with subverting just authority.
5. It's fostered a climate of fear, with priests and even Bishops looking over their shoulders in case they get delated for perceived errors.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Shake on, phrasal verb.
❓ Definition (informal): Confirm (an agreement) by shaking hands.
❗️ Examples:
1. They shook on the deal.
2. The two shook on an agreement long ago where Durst pays Biddle a small base salary, plus extras for other tasks.
3. Abbas and Sharon shake on the latest peace agreement.
4. Blaise took his hand as they shook on the agreement.
5. The room was silent as Lee and I shook on the agreement, than it suddenly came to life as the guys blurted out in a cheer.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Jam tomorrow, phrase.
❓ Definition (British): A pleasant thing which is often promised but rarely materializes.
❗️ Examples:
1. A promise of jam tomorrow wasn't enough to satisfy them.
2. Policy holders want cash today, not the promise of jam tomorrow, and if people don't appreciate that then they are out of touch.
3. He should realise that promises of jam tomorrow are not helping shopkeepers in his area to swallow difficulties forced on them by the loss of parking spaces.
4. Unfortunately, in the case of human and civil rights, promises of jam tomorrow are simply not good enough.
5. We have been promised jam tomorrow but we have never got it.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Stunning, adjective.
🔉 /ˈstʌnɪŋ/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition: Extremely impressive or attractive.
❗️ Examples:
1. She looked stunning.
2. My new temporary home in Encinitas was quite superb, walking distance away from stunning California beaches.
3. Eddie's stunning Donegal girlfriend Michelle Doherty was also present.
4. Finally tonight, the Mars rover Opportunity today sent stunning new images of Mars back to earth.
5. Andrea Elvey hit the post before stunning interplay between Jo Martin and Kirsty Ormrod led to Brooks firing in Kendal's second.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Pricey, adjective.
🔉 /ˈprʌɪsi/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (informal): Expensive.
❗️ Examples:
1. Boutiques selling pricey clothes.
2. People are revered if they are dressed in expensive clothes and have pricy items in their homes.
3. Some homeowners have even traded down from more expensive abodes to less pricey dwellings.
4. We had been told the pub was expensive - but it wasn't unduly pricey.
5. Hand-made saddles may be a diminishing requirement in an age of machining perfection, but Emma still keeps her hand in by constantly working on at least one, even though they are a very pricy item these days.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Muti, noun.
🔉 /ˈmuːti/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (mass noun): Traditional African medicine or magical charms.
❗️ Examples:
1. Poisoning of vultures for muti, as traditional medicines are called, has been going on for many years, he said.
2. One South African newspaper has even used muti to attempt to counter low staff morale and flagging circulation.
3. Although police have not confirmed that the killing was connected to muti, which just means medicine, the incident has had traditional healers scrambling to denounce the practice.
4. That was until members of the African community in London called in to ask the officers if they had heard of muti.
5. They met the village sangoma who fascinated the visitors with her mysterious luck muti, which he suggested the team used before tomorrow's Test.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Sort something out, phrasal verb.
❓ Definition: Separate something from a mixed group.
❗️ Examples:
1. She sorted out the lettuce from the spinach.
2. I am all for recycling and happily sorted my waste out for disposal in the separate skips.
3. Trent quickly sorted the names out into two separate columns.
4. The game involved them sorting the cards out into several shifting categories of species, weaknesses and grades.
5. She is uniquely positioned to sort fact from fiction in this nascent field.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 The villain of the piece, phrase.
❓ Definition (British): The person or thing responsible for all of the trouble or harm in a particular situation.
❗️ Examples:
1. TV tends to be cast as the villain of the piece.
2. Holdsworth was the villain of the piece when he missed an open goal.
3. He thinks she's trying to make him out to be the villain of the piece.
4. The locked-up wife is transformed into the villain of the piece.
5. Jones, the villain of the piece to Americans, was an Australian.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Tomorrow is another day, phrase.
❓ Definition: Said after a bad experience to express one's belief that the future will be better.
❗️ Examples:
1. There's always hope because tomorrow is another day.
2. Who knows, tomorrow is another day and you never know what is going to come in the door.
3. Take each day as it comes and at the end of the day, if things still aren't done, remember that tomorrow is another day.
4. This is just a phase, it will pass, now get some rest, tomorrow is another day!
5. Duncan is obviously disappointed, but tomorrow is another day for getting it right.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Hit on, phrasal verb.
❓ Definition: Make sexual advances towards.
❗️ Examples:
1. He was really hitting on me, with steamy looks and innuendos.
2. If he persists, however, in hitting on you and continuing with the suggestive remarks, then, indeed, you have a harassment case.
3. But in our keeping in touch that summer, he started hitting on me.
4. My best friend's boyfriend keeps hitting on me and everyone thinks it's a joke!
5. Because when we were 15 years old, guys hit on us all the time, and we just wouldn't say anything.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Xeric, adjective.
🔉 /ˈzɪərɪk/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (Ecology): (of an environment or habitat) containing little moisture; very dry.
❗️ Examples:
1. Xeric conditions.
2. The southern transect spanned principally xeric habitats, whereas the eastern crossed mesic forest.
3. Males are more common in harsher environments, such as xeric, nutrient-poor or shaded conditions.
4. Communities range from xeric habitats such as scrub and scrubby flatwoods to hydric habitats such as floodplain forest and blackwater stream.
5. Todies occupy virtually all forested habitats on the island of Puerto Rico, from the relatively cool rain forests of the northeastern mountains to the hot xeric scrub forests of the southwest coast.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Root something out, phrasal verb.
❓ Definition: Find and get rid of someone or something pernicious or dangerous.
❗️ Examples:
1. A campaign to root out corruption.
2. We will either root it out and extinguish it wherever it may hide, or it will find us and strip us of our safety, happiness and everything we cherish.
3. Basically, the government should get tougher with those who send such e-mails for their own profits and a national campaign should be launched until the evil practice is rooted out.
4. But the breadth of corruption makes the challenge of rooting it out more difficult.
5. There were pockets of corruption, but our efforts to root it out are beginning to yield results.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Sort out the men from the boys, phrase.
❓ Definition: Show or prove who is the best at a particular activity.
❗️ Examples:
1. The mountains apparently sort out the men from the boys.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Figurative, adjective.
🔉 /ˈfɪɡ(ə)rətɪv/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition: Departing from a literal use of words; metaphorical.
❗️ Examples:
1. A figurative expression.
2. For example, is the term metaphor itself literal or figurative?
3. Teens comprehend abstract language, such as idioms, figurative language, and metaphors.
4. A figurative remark takes on literal construction, a metaphor is concretized in fact.
5. Using it is too much of a literal and figurative headache, and if you get sloppy there's always the danger of nasty results.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Hang loose, phrase.
❓ Definition (North American • informal): Be relaxed; refrain from taking anything too seriously.
❗️ Examples:
1. Hang loose, baby!
2. Still, if you go in not expecting very much, and relax and just hang loose, you will find a lot to smile about.
3. He likes to joke around and is tremendous about creating a positive atmosphere so the guys can stay loose.
4. The key I believe is to stay loose and just write whatever pops into your head.
5. Just chill out and hang loose, she said knowingly.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Herbary, noun.
🔉 /ˈhəːbəri/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (archaic): A herb garden.
❗️ Examples:
1. Yeah, I'd hire some tattered old environmentalist with a bike-trailer to tend to my herbaries.
2. After 1664, during the Edo period, this area became the residential site of lord Matsudaira who created a garden that contained ponds and herbaries.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 As if there was (or as though there were) no tomorrow, phrase.
❓ Definition: With no regard for the future consequences.
❗️ Examples:
1. I ate as if there was no tomorrow.
2. He gnawed and bit and scratched as if there was no tomorrow!
3. The banks are still lending as if there was no tomorrow.
4. She and Dan would swim and swim as if there was no tomorrow.
5. Before I could say anything, he was kissing me as if there was no tomorrow.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Fortify, verb.
🔉 /ˈfɔːtɪfʌɪ/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (with object): Provide (a place) with defensive works as protection against attack.
❗️ Examples:
1. The enclave has been heavily fortified in recent years.
2. He immediately set up a defensive perimeter and fortified his area.
3. I came in from the sides like a well drilled eighteenth century army attacking some fortified town in the Low Countries.
4. Achieving both can fortify a region militarily and put its economy on par with the world's best.
5. The kingdom shall be protected by fortifying the capital and the towns at the frontiers.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Mass noun, noun.
❓ Definition: A noun denoting something that cannot be counted (e.g. a substance or quality), in English usually a noun which lacks a plural in ordinary usage and is not used with the indefinite article, e.g. china, happiness.
❗️ Examples:
1. When used in a generic sense, only mass nouns and plural count nouns are able to occur without a determiner or quantifier: Water is colourless, Groceries are expensive, Dogs make good companions, * Dog makes a good companion.
2. At the same time, their language does have a distinction between count and mass nouns, so that there is the equivalent of the English difference between " { many / * much foreigners } " and " { * many/much manioc meal.
3. For example, Mandarin's usage of mass nouns predisposes its discourse to take a more holistic approach to the world than say, English, which demarcates objects more readily.
4. And I also wonder what happens when you have a noun that doesn't need a determiner at all, for example mass nouns such as water, or plural nouns.
5. Beware of anyone who pluralizes literature, which is already a mass noun.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Grebo, noun.
🔉 /ˈɡriːbəʊ/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (British • informal): A youth favouring heavy metal or punk rock music, and having long hair.
❗️ Examples:
1. It was the birthplace of the unlamented, long-haired grebo scene of the late 80s, whose bands sported long hair and baggy shorts onstage.
2. But basically kids are really keen to label each other, they even told me I was a grebo because I like the Kaiser Chiefs.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Ward someone/something off, phrasal verb.
❓ Definition: Prevent someone or something from harming or affecting one.
❗️ Examples:
1. She put up a hand as if to ward him off.
2. The archetypal souvenirs are ceramic tiles featuring the Evil Eye - a Turkish good luck charm designed to ward off evil spirits.
3. In areas where apples were grown, it evolved into a ritual in which chants and dances were used to ward off evil spirits which it was believed would harm the trees.
4. The veil was also believed to magically have the power to ward off surrounding evils that wish to harm the bride.
5. Practices included the use of talismans and incantations to ward off evil spirits, and shamanic journeying.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Upwardly (or downwardly) mobile, phrase.
❓ Definition: Moving to a higher (or lower) social class; acquiring (or losing) wealth and status.
❗️ Examples:
1. An upwardly mobile daughter returning to her roots.
2. It's two decades since the great council house sale in the UK but my parents, upwardly mobile working class, bought a house in 1955.
3. Puritan, and Parliamentary, ideas were most popular among the upwardly mobile commercial middle classes.
4. It seems that upwardly mobile social climbers find the snob appeal of double-barrelled names irresistible.
5. The upwardly mobile class today is weighed down by lifestyle, junk food, limited physical activity and excess body weight.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Absorb, verb.
🔉 /əbˈzɔːb/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (with object): Take in or soak up (energy or a liquid or other substance) by chemical or physical action.
❗️ Examples:
1. Buildings can be designed to absorb and retain heat.
2. Steroids are absorbed into the bloodstream.
3. Molecules may change their rotational energy levels by absorbing energy from electromagnetic radiation in the microwave region of the spectrum.
4. Carbon dioxide primarily absorbs infrared energy emitted by the Earth, thus contributing to the greenhouse effect and warming the Earth's surface and the atmosphere.
5. Electrons in the mineral absorb the energy from the activator and become excited.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Alter, verb.
🔉 /ˈɔːltə/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition: Change in character or composition, typically in a comparatively small but significant way.
❗️ Examples:
1. Eliot was persuaded to alter the passage.
2. Our outward appearance alters as we get older.
3. The English ruling class was wiped out and the character of the nation altered forever.
4. Digitally alter all the alien characters so they have 2 heads because that would look so cool.
5. During the course of the show, he altered the character of two sculptures by revising the installation.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Pinguid, adjective.
🔉 /ˈpɪŋɡwɪd/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (formal): Of the nature of or resembling fat; oily or greasy.
❗️ Examples:
1. His car was splattered with some sort of pinguid substance, and washing it only seemed to spread the mess.
2. If you have the time and the budget then this is palate paradise even though you feel decidedly pinguid (fat) by the end of it.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Break out, phrasal verb.
❓ Definition: (of war, fighting, or similarly undesirable things) start suddenly.
❗️ Examples:
1. Forest fires have broken out across Indonesia.
2. The incident happened after a fight broke out between a group of up to six youngsters in the school's playground at about 8.45 am.
3. Police were called after fighting broke out among a group of around 40 men.
4. When war broke out he willingly fought for Britain, and before being sent to France he adopted a British name so that he would not be shot as a traitor if captured.
5. A fight broke out early on Saturday morning, in the car park of the club.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Things that go bump in the night, phrase.
❓ Definition (informal, humorous): Unexplained and frightening noises at night, regarded as being caused by ghosts.
❗️ Examples:
1. The fear of long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night.
2. As a youngster I had a dreadful fear of ghost stories and things that go bump in the night.
3. Meanwhile, professional ghost-finders are set to launch a three-day festival in York dedicated to the things that go bump in the night.
4. You are thinking about things that go bump in the night and monsters under your bed and vampires peering at you through your window.
5. I have a fear of things that go bump in the night.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Resurrect, verb.
🔉 /rɛzəˈrɛkt/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (with object): Restore (a dead person) to life.
❗️ Examples:
1. He queried whether Jesus was indeed resurrected.
2. The plot sinks into absurdity, as dead people are resurrected and the Beast is exposed as a mechanical porcupine.
3. By the tune of her voice, you might have thought she was just told that her dead family was resurrected.
4. The gods of the world are having trouble keeping the demons at bay, and so they come up with a last-ditch scheme - to resurrect a dead hero.
5. But it seemed he was resurrected, as though he were never dead.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Suspend, verb.
🔉 /səˈspɛnd/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (with object): Temporarily prevent from continuing or being in force or effect.
❗️ Examples:
1. Work on the dam was suspended.
2. While immediate lay-offs have been temporarily suspended, the crisis continues with thousands of jobs among Rover's suppliers also under threat.
3. The traders have been forced to temporarily suspend trading as they do not want any more clients to fall into this black hole.
4. Recently Ryanair was forced to temporarily suspend services on its Strasbourg / London route.
5. Following the Thursday explosion, reports were circulated that claimed the security raid has been suspended and forces were ordered to retreat.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Trog, noun.
🔉 /trɒɡ/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (British • informal): A person regarded as contemptible or socially inferior.
❗️ Examples:
1. Unlike him, I think top universities do have a duty to open more routes, but ministers should devise quotas that help the genuinely disadvantaged, the trogs of Hartlepool, not the trendies of Hampstead.
2. At the risk of sounding like one of those trogs who dwells in a cave, shouts UGH when a strange clan shows up and waves monkey femurs, and must wait 75,000 years before Nuance is discovered, I'll admit to being anti-enemy.
3. Where are all the not-yet-total trogs, but not still bling-bling homies?
4. He's your typical footy trog who inflates the language of football by injecting gratuitous fat-speak.
5. For each of these guys are scores of others who ride, from the dirtiest swamp trog to the freshest flip technician.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Preconceived, adjective.
🔉 /priːkənˈsiːvd/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition: (of an idea or opinion) formed before having the evidence for its truth or usefulness.
❗️ Examples:
1. The same set of facts can be tailored to fit any preconceived belief.
2. It is the evidence that determines all this, not any preconceived opinion or ideological view.
3. Obviously Gary had never read a romance book in his life, but his preconceived ideas did provide entertainment for the rest of us.
4. It's been my experience that life is so constructed that the event cannot and will not live up to preconceived idea I have about it.
5. On the future of banking in Ireland he has no preconceived ideas of what is right and what is wrong.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 On the back foot, phrase.
❓ Definition (British): Outmanoeuvred by a competitor or opponent; at a disadvantage.
❗️ Examples:
1. Messi's early goal put Milan on the back foot.
2. The government found itself on the back foot as peaceful demonstrations continued.
3. By the early summer of 1918, the German submarines were clearly on the back foot.
4. The Irish government appeared to be put on the back foot.
5. The polls may not show much change but the government gives all the appearances of being on the back foot.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Reprimand, noun.
🔉 /ˈrɛprɪmɑːnd/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition: A formal expression of disapproval.
❗️ Examples:
1. The golfer received a reprimand for a breach of rules.
2. They both received a written reprimand and were ordered to pay significant costs.
3. His behavior, which did not go unnoticed, became the subject of a formal reprimand by the Cliburn Foundation chairman.
4. Among other unfair treatments she made him mop the floor and issued formal warnings for relatively minor offences for which female employees received mild, informal reprimands.
5. It should also be noted that Harper bravely made those statements outside of the House of Commons because he would receive a severe reprimand for using unparliamentary language.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Refine, verb.
🔉 /rɪˈfʌɪn/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (with object): Make minor changes so as to improve or clarify (a theory or method)
❗️ Examples:
1. Ease of access to computers has refined analysis and presentation of data.
2. The premise is correct: there has been progress; theories are refined, generalised, clarified, simplified, and perfected.
3. We then used the results of our analysis to refine the original theory and to add to the literature in new ways.
4. The course materials and the presentation methods were progressively refined for each course.
5. Freud's theories were incidental - useful in refining traditional methods of popular control perhaps, but a sideshow.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Spaghettification, noun.
🔉 /spəɡɛtifɪˈkeɪʃ(ə)n/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (Physics • mass noun): The process by which (in some theories) an object would be stretched and ripped apart by gravitational forces on falling into a black hole.
❗️ Examples:
1. The extreme tidal forces would stretch the observer head to foot; this effect is called spaghettification.
2. If I chose a black hole of about 10 million times our sun's mass, I would feel only slight spaghettification forces - not enough to kill me.
3. You know… spaghettification isn't the simplest of physics theories… if you are studying stuff like this then you must have easy access to the knowledge base anyway.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Submerge, verb.
🔉 /səbˈməːdʒ/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (with object): Cause (something) to be under water.
❗️ Examples:
1. Houses had been flooded and cars submerged.
2. A sheet of glass was blown out of one window, the car park was submerged and water gradually rose up the main steps.
3. Her claim for damages was still under consideration by City Hall when yesterday morning's flood waters submerged her home.
4. The road was submerged as flood water rose in the area.
5. Crews in Central Texas pulled this woman to safety after fast-moving waters swept and submerged her car.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 My way or the highway, phrase.
❓ Definition (North American • informal): Said to assert the view that there is no alternative (apart from leaving) but to accept the speaker's opinions or policies.
❗️ Examples:
1. They know no way but the way of the autocrat — it's my way or the highway.
2. It's always the ultimatum, my way or the highway.
3. Listen bud, she said as she leaned towards him, one arm on the table as she did so, It's my way or the highway.
4. One former international summed up his approach to getting his plans through: With Jim, it's always been my way or the highway.
5. When he first moved into coaching, I did fear for him because, in some ways, he could be old school and rather intolerant - my way or the highway.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Nutritional, adjective.
🔉 /njuːˈtrɪʃ(ə)n(ə)l/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition: Relating to the process of providing or obtaining the food necessary for health and growth.
❗️ Examples:
1. Genetic engineering can alter the nutritional value of food.
2. Nutritional deficiencies in the diet.
3. Iron deficiency is the most serious nutritional deficiency worldwide.
4. Sound nutritional advice is based on good food analysis.
5. The old hay probably doesn't have much nutritional quality left in it.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Worldwide, adjective.
🔉 /ˈwəːl(d)wʌɪd/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition: Extending or reaching throughout the world.
❗️ Examples:
1. Worldwide sales of television rights.
2. This event will reach a worldwide audience as the team set out to put Ireland on the map.
3. They are starting to be used as weapons and will soon have worldwide reach.
4. His unique talent has earned him a worldwide reputation as the world's most popular phantom.
5. It may go some way to repair the damage to the worldwide reputation of Irish banks.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Hallion, noun.
🔉 /ˈhaljən/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (Scottish, Northern Irish • informal): A worthless or contemptible person.
❗️ Examples:
1. I've never seen a worse-looking bunch of hallions.
2. I'm sick sore and tired of the hallions slagging us off.
3. Social media does provide a ready forum for the hashtag hallion sniping away from the coward's comfort of anonymity.
4. His update on big the transfer dealings has been rudely interrupted by a hallion in sunglasses and a black hoody.
5. I've never seen a worse-looking bunch of hallions marching anywhere in my life.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Life-threatening, adjective.
🔉 /ˈlʌɪfˌθrɛt(ə)nɪŋ/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition: (especially of an illness or injury) potentially fatal.
❗️ Examples:
1. Cancer is not the only life-threatening condition.
2. And it's not just those suffering from life-threatening illness who are offered such help.
3. The basic fact may nowhere be as true as when we are tested by a life-threatening illness.
4. The man was taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries - a deep wound to his side had punctured a lung.
5. They have been asked to keep an eye out for symptoms of the potentially life-threatening disease in their children.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Nothing succeeds like success, phrase.
❓ Definition (proverb): Success leads to opportunities for further and greater successes.
❗️ Examples:
1. At the end of the day, nothing succeeds like success.
2. But in America, nothing succeeds like success.
3. In mitigation, this run of bad results was closely tied to a string of away fixtures that would test any team but it once again proved that if nothing succeeds like success then failure facilitates a firing.
4. You know that saying, nothing succeeds like success?
5. Well, its an old saying and a true one: nothing succeeds like success.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Deed, noun.
🔉 /diːd/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition: An action that is performed intentionally or consciously.
❗️ Examples:
1. Doing good deeds.
2. Her kind nature was ever to the fore and she performed many good deeds in her own quiet manner.
3. The Executive has made a virtue of preaching the need for reform without accompanying those words with deeds.
4. But some, who saw what took place, said: From where does this child spring, since his every word is an accomplished deed?
5. She also called on the congregation not to establish a political party but instead to perform good deeds to serve the society.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Mankind, noun.
❓ Definition (mass noun): Human beings considered collectively; the human race.
❗️ Examples:
1. Research for the benefit of all mankind.
2. Arms races have dogged mankind from the dawn of history, and history seems bound to repeat itself.
3. It is often acknowledged that the history of mankind is written by its victors.
4. Had he been listened to, the history of mankind might have been different.
5. Proof that history depends on mankind rather than a merely symbolic event was in evidence in two nations.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Guddle, verb.
🔉 /ˈɡʌd(ə)l/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (Scottish • no object): Fish with the hands by groping under the stones or banks of a stream.
❗️ Examples:
1. Despite the general exuberance, nobody went guddling for piranhas in the Glasshouse zoo.
2. As well as his normal boyish pursuits of guddling for trout, playing pranks on PC Murdoch, and avoiding maths tests, Wullie has a love interest.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Aforementioned, adjective.
🔉 /əfɔːˈmɛnʃənd/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition: Denoting a thing or person previously mentioned.
❗️ Examples:
1. Songs from the aforementioned album.
2. All of the aforementioned public representatives present addressed the meeting.
3. Apart from the aforementioned health benefits, it has given his work an integrity that it did not need previously.
4. Smoking is already banned in most of the places that people have to use, such as the aforementioned public transport.
5. The aforementioned rules may only be altered by the holder of the agreement.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Take a rain check, phrase.
❓ Definition (North American): Used to refuse an offer politely, with the implication that one may take it up at a later date.
❗️ Examples:
1. They wanted me to come along for the ride but I took a rain check.
2. Now now I didn't turn you down I just took a rain check.
3. She took a rain check on the invitation to lunch with her colleagues and sought Mel out instead.
4. I think I'll take a rain check on that one, Winters.
5. I've got a lot of studying to do, I'll have to take a rain check.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Fortify, verb.
🔉 /ˈfɔːtɪfʌɪ/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (with object): Increase the nutritional value of (food) by adding vitamins or minerals.
❗️ Examples:
1. Most commercial brands of almond milk are fortified with vitamins A, D, B2, B12, calcium, and zinc.
2. Because many American foods are fortified with vitamin A, deficiency is very rare in individuals who do not have certain chronic intestinal illnesses.
3. The body more readily absorbs folic acid from vitamin supplements and fortified foods than folate from food.
4. Margarine is fortified with added vitamins A and D to bring their levels up to those naturally present in butter.
5. Manufacturers should lower the amount of vitamin A in multivitamin tablets and fortified foods, such as cereals, says Michaelsson.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Retain, verb.
🔉 /rɪˈteɪn/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (with object): Absorb and continue to hold (a substance)
❗️ Examples:
1. Limestone is known to retain water.
2. Containers that have soils high in organic matter retain soil moisture longer than other growing media.
3. In the burning process most carbon, nitrogen and sulphur are lost in gaseous form, whereas phosphorus, potassium and calcium are retained in the ash.
4. The job was one that must be done every fall when the crops are in - removing the long strips of black plastic mulch that warms the soil, retains moisture, and stifles the weeds.
5. The more water a place retains throughout the year, the more complex an ecosystem it can support.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Xiphoid, adjective.
🔉 /ˈzɪfɔɪd/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (technical): Sword-shaped.
❗️ Examples:
No examples.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Splinter, noun.
🔉 /ˈsplɪntə/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition: A small, thin, sharp piece of wood, glass, or similar material broken off from a larger piece.
❗️ Examples:
1. A splinter of ice.
2. Their room was filled with glass shards and wood splinters.
3. She looked down at her hands, bloody from the myriad of wood splinters and glass shards that had imbedded themselves in her skin.
4. The splinter from the broken glass hit Evelyn's right shin, leaving a two-inch gash.
5. The flying vehicle of ours crashed through the roadblock, sending splinters and pieces of wood whistling all over the place.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 From time to time, phrase.
❓ Definition: Occasionally.
❗️ Examples:
1. Although he is now fluent in Bulgarian, Matt still confuses the odd word from time to time.
2. Chances are you won't get one, but I understand that you feel the need - we all do from time to time.
3. Place on a high heat and bring to the boil, stirring from time to time.
4. Friday night was one of those pleasant surprises the Internet throws my way from time to time.
5. Pack little surprises from time to time like stickers, a novelty pen or a joke.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Evade, verb.
🔉 /ɪˈveɪd/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (with object): Escape or avoid (someone or something), especially by guile or trickery.
❗️ Examples:
1. Friends helped him to evade capture for a time.
2. Many of them, including suspected murderers and rapists, continue to evade police capture for months or even years.
3. Both are cunning predators that can evade any attempts of capture or extinction.
4. Poetry cannot escape ideology nor can evade the class struggle since the latter indirectly or more directly inform the poet's political and artistic consciousness.
5. Several lines of evidence suggest that twig anoles rely more on stealth than speed to capture prey and evade predators.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Hostile, adjective.
🔉 /ˈhɒstʌɪl/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition: Showing or feeling opposition or dislike; unfriendly.
❗️ Examples:
1. A hostile audience.
2. He wrote a ferociously hostile attack.
3. But it was clear last night that the proposals would face hostile opposition from some health professionals and parents' groups.
4. On the other hand, it meant that some of his ideas provoked hostile opposition, while others were greeted with incomprehension or indifference.
5. And they have recognised that the movement must be built in the face of hostile opposition from a Labour government.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Gîte, noun.
🔉 /ʒiːt/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition: A furnished holiday house in France, typically in a rural district.
❗️ Examples:
1. The most you will get for a gîte is £600 in high season, £300 in the low.
2. I followed a French long-distance footpath and stayed in mountain huts or gîtes.
3. With six bedroom suites and a two-bed gîte, it would make a perfect B&B.
4. As my postbag and inbox tell me, a fair few of you intend to buy in bulk en route to the gîte, on the way back, or both.
5. If you have come out to semi-retire and live off the income of a gîte then you need to be sure you have a good business plan.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Dull, adjective.
🔉 /dʌl/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition: Lacking interest or excitement.
❗️ Examples:
1. Your diet doesn't have to be dull and boring.
2. The next day was as boring, mundane, unexciting, humdrum, dull, tedious, uneventful and monotonous as usual.
3. That would add greater interest to an otherwise dull sport, and would mean a large pool of volunteers willing to sweep up the pitch at the final whistle.
4. It was a rare moment of excitement in an otherwise dull match.
5. So no excuses for last minute gifts that are bland, boring and dull.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Turn traitor, phrase.
❓ Definition: Betray a group or person.
❗️ Examples:
1. She'd had the gall to deny she had turned traitor.
2. But there were other, subtler ways of turning traitor, and he felt her coming absence, looming two afternoons a week, as proof of that.
3. One of the key prosecution witnesses at his trial was a trusted comrade who had turned traitor.
4. Others have turned traitor, switching allegiances from synthesisers to guitars.
5. Friends turn traitor and fellow countrymen become the enemy in a war-torn world where the old rules are worthless.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Drastically, adverb.
🔉 /ˈdrastɪkli/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition: In a way that is likely to have a strong or far-reaching effect.
❗️ Examples:
1. Now her fortunes have changed drastically.
2. Management layers will be drastically reduced.
3. The number of films being made - particularly entertainment films - dropped drastically.
4. At the same time, the traditional industries of fishing and lobstering declined drastically as marine wildlife disappeared from the harbor.
5. By the end of 1999 its economy had shrunk by 7 per cent and the unemployment ratio had increased drastically.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Interfere, verb.
🔉 /ɪntəˈfɪə/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (no object): Intervene in a situation without invitation or necessity.
❗️ Examples:
1. You promised not to interfere.
2. She tried not to interfere in her children's lives.
3. But she'd promised herself she'd never interfere in a situation like that - and she didn't.
4. We've interfered in their lives, their economies and everything, and now because it suits, we say that we cannot interfere in their internal affairs.
5. The relevant people should not make a fuss and should not interfere in business deals for political reasons.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Love apple, noun.
❓ Definition (archaic): A tomato.
❗️ Examples:
1. The tomato used to be called the love apple and this is nothing to do with its passionate colour or suggestive shape.
2. A member of the Nightshade family, the tomato originated in Central America and was brought to Europe by the Spanish conquistadors, who nicknamed it the love apple.
3. Sun-warmed and soft, that juicy vine-ripened love apple is one of the true garden treats.
4. Open air markets still supply locally grown fruits (bananas, coconuts, guava, pineapples, mangoes, love apples, and passion fruit) and vegetables (breadfruit, Chinese cabbage, yams, gumbo, and manioc).
5. This fruit confused French and Italian cooks, too, who called them potatoes d' amour or love apples, and pomodoro or golden apples, respectively.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Straightforward, adjective.
🔉 /streɪtˈfɔːwəd/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition: Uncomplicated and easy to do or understand.
❗️ Examples:
1. In a straightforward case no fees will be charged.
2. They would have felt easier with a straightforward repayment loan, where each month the debt reduced.
3. Life was easy, straightforward, and if he wanted something done, he just did it.
4. Knowing when to stop is not an easy or straightforward matter in ethnography.
5. Dispassionate analysis of American politics is neither easy nor straightforward.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Slippery slope, phrase.
❓ Definition: A course of action likely to lead to something bad or disastrous.
❗️ Examples:
1. He is on the slippery slope towards a life of crime.
2. This leads them down a slippery slope until, at the end of the play, they tear each other's throats out.
3. Not me, evidently: and so my first step was taken on that slippery slope leading down to a kind of gentle madness.
4. Critics say the law would be a slippery slope leading to anti-abortion laws in Canada.
5. In the very least, it is part of the slippery slope that has led to dislocation, desperation and even despair.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Irritable, adjective.
🔉 /ˈɪrɪtəb(ə)l/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition: Having or showing a tendency to be easily annoyed.
❗️ Examples:
1. She was tired and irritable.
2. She seemed irritable, and annoyed with my every move.
3. The wait would grate so terribly on my nerves that I could easily be irritable for days afterwards, but that particular drive was different.
4. Will asked, starting to get annoyed, the pain in his head making him more irritable.
5. And these US marines smoking more than usual under the stress of battle conditions are becoming increasingly irritable.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Ambassador, noun.
🔉 /amˈbasədə/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition: An accredited diplomat sent by a state as its permanent representative in a foreign country.
❗️ Examples:
1. The French ambassador to Portugal.
2. He also indicated that various foreign ambassadors and high commissioners had expressed similar sentiments.
3. Benjamin Franklin was the US ambassador to absolutist France after the American Revolution.
4. It was conducted by a diplomat who had served as an ambassador to three African countries.
5. Neither letter refers to the resignation of the Eritrean ambassador to Sweden.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Inglenook, noun.
🔉 /ˈɪŋɡ(ə)lnʊk/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition: A space on either side of a large fireplace.
❗️ Examples:
1. An inglenook fireplace.
2. Inside, there is a reception hall with an inglenook fireplace, lounge, dining room, fitted kitchen, study, and three bedrooms.
3. At the back is a large living room with a brick inglenook fireplace and solid fuel stove.
4. These four and five bedroom properties are, ideal for professionals who like to entertain, and have features such as sunrooms for all year round dining and an inglenook fireplace for relaxing evenings at home.
5. Meals are served in a cosy dining-room with a large inglenook fireplace.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Frankly, adverb.
🔉 /ˈfraŋkli/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition: In an open, honest, and direct manner.
❗️ Examples:
1. She talks very frankly about herself.
2. It is time that the parish council told council tax payers what is going on - openly and frankly.
3. I can tell you quite frankly that the stuff from our childhoods is not to be blamed on us.
4. As an Independent councillor he will be able to express frankly what Walcot people say they need.
5. Last night, in an interview to accompany the new portrait, the prince spoke frankly about both issues.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Look on the bright side, phrase.
❓ Definition: Be optimistic or cheerful in spite of difficulties.
❗️ Examples:
1. I expect I shall manage, she said, determined to look on the bright side.
2. He was always the one who looked on the bright side, the optimistic one.
3. With so many good things happening, it is so difficult not to look on the bright side, isn't it?
4. At first, anti-dam activists looked on the bright side.
5. The move might seem like nothing more than a disruption, but the director is looking on the bright side.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Hung-over, adjective.
❓ Definition: Suffering from a hangover after drinking alcohol.
❗️ Examples:
1. You look distinctly hung-over.
2. I was so tired that I slept through everything, and woke up late in the afternoon, refreshed, if not a little hung-over.
3. You are constantly jet-lagged, knackered or hung-over.
4. Nine years ago, whilst hung-over, I fell in the shower.
5. Are you sitting by yourself, eating corn chips, hung-over, depressed about your imminent breakdown, or the news?
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Straightforward, adjective.
🔉 /streɪtˈfɔːwəd/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition: (of a person) honest and frank.
❗️ Examples:
1. A straightforward young man.
2. There is a nice sense of menace developing in it, and I like how none of the characters are straightforward.
3. Men are intensely straightforward and logical beings, and they find this confusing.
4. They are pretty straightforward with me, they know I can handle whatever it takes.
5. Kenneth was trying to hint, but Jessica was more straightforward than the rest of them.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Pootle, verb.
🔉 /ˈpuːt(ə)l/ 🇬🇧
❓ Definition (British • informal • no object, with adverbial of direction): Move or travel in a leisurely manner.
❗️ Examples:
1. They were pootling down a canal in their new boat.
2. Then, while pootling along at about 12 mph at the top of Madingley Rise, I got passed by a bloke I recognised from the office (don't know his name).
3. I'm not ready for a test, I still should be pootling on quiet roads at 3mph.
4. The drive was superb, tight, controllable, plenty of power but docile as a kitten after a big meal when simply pootling along.
5. My speed is considerably less than his, so he was pootling along at my side, not getting the degree of exercise he's used to.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
📚 Junk food, noun.
❓ Definition (mass noun): Pre-prepared or packaged food that has low nutritional value.
❗️ Examples:
1. I was eating too much junk food.
2. When I was a child I wasn't allowed to eat so much junk food from fast food outlets that I became overweight and ill.
3. That means an annual exposure to thousands of commercials for junk food and fast food.
4. Not only are our kids overfed on junk food and fast food, they are fast becoming victims of the techno age.
5. She may be eating a lot of junk food because the junk food comforts her without judging her.
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🌀 @cambridge_dic
