Questions tagged [phrase-meaning]
Use this tag for questions about the meaning and/or usage of a particular phrase, which a dictionary cannot answer.
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What does the phrase ''found useful'' mean?
In this following context, what does the phrase ''found useful '' mean? Is it ''practical''?
Does the phrase ''found useful'' modify the word ''terms''?
Should I take this sentence as: ''...are merely ...
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Can these sentences be used to mean you are busy?
I'm stuck with some things
I'm tied up with something
Both are literal translations from my native language. I think the first one works but second one doesn't. Are there any more natural phases to ...
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"so" + adjective + "that" + someone + "be"-verb + adjective
I want to convey the meaning that English is widespread to the extent that people should not disregard learning it (as a suggestion) or it is not reasonable to disregard leaning it.
1.a) Usage of ...
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What does the phrase ''as such'' mean?
In this following context, what does the phrase ''as such'' mean?
Does it mean ''therefore''or ''in itself''?
Or does it refer something which is an antecedent?
Please, explain this to me...
Context
...
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What does it mean ".. economy began to look eastwards"
The growth of St Petersburg also had far-reaching consequences for the economic development of Finland. The political division into a western Swedish and an eastern Russian Finland did not have its ...
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What does "your authors" mean?
In a book
Engineering Software as a Service: An Agile Approach Using Cloud Computing, "your authors" is repeatedly used, for example:
But while pair
programming emerged as a practice used ...
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meaning: "nothing so much as a dictionary"
What does "nothing so much as" mean in the following? Is it natural?
Ricky wants nothing so much as a dictionary.
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God doesn't give with both hands
Does "God doesn't give with both hands" mean that one can't have everything in life?
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"are sitting" vs "have sat"
Context: Suppose you have just arrived at a cinema and say:
A lot of people have sat, waiting for the movie to start.
A lot of people are sitting, waiting for the movie to start.
What is the ...
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What does 'ground this thing out' means?
What does this senior defense official means by saying this: “He is signaling that he’s trying to ground this thing out,” a senior defense official said in an interview.
Source: https://www.nytimes....
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Which one is correct here: "let alone feed her children" or "leave alone her children"?
The following sentence is from the BBC web site. It is about violence against women in India.
"....There is no support system, few shelter homes and the compensation awarded to abandoned women ...
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What does "break on someone " mean in this context?
I mentioned apartment issues earlier and there were many. Things were either not functional when we got the keys or would easily break on us
I'm assuming things would malfunction when they're trying ...
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what does the phrase ''in the noblest sense of the word'' mean?
In this following context, what does the phrase ''in the noblest sense of the word'' mean?
Is it mere emphasis phrase? or should I take ''literally'' as its synonym?
It is the inward condition of a ...
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When does "fail" imply an unsuccessful attempt and when does it imply a lack of attempt?
Look at here
The first definition of "fail" in the Cambridge dictionary is: "to not succeed in what you are trying to achieve or are expected to do".
Another definition of "...
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"If sb can not do sth, ..." vs. "If sb fail(s) to do sth, ..." vs. ""If sb cannot do sth, ...""
If government can not control the soaring prices, many companies will go bankrupt.
If government cannot control the soaring prices, many companies will go bankrupt.
If government fails to control ...
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Preposterositions
OK, as a German I'm a bit the pot calling the kettle black, but when I heard "Detroit Rock City" by Kiss ("Get up, everybody gonna move their feet, get down, everybody gonna leave their ...
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What do the sentences in bold mean from Macgyver S01E01?
What do the sentences in bold mean from Macgyver S01E01?
I know the meaning of trade but I’m confused what dose it mean in this context, I thought it means the activity of selling and buying goods.
...
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"Thinking little at all about nothing in particular"
If the bold part is removed, the sentence is ok. But as it is, it sounds weird. Could you help me fugure out the syntax of it? What is "little"? What does "at all" have to do with ...
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What does 'a stage Southern accent' mean?
From Oxford Learner's Dictionaries:
He had assumed a stage Southern accent.
What does 'a stage Southern accent' mean, especially 'stage' in this case? Is it an adjective?
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What does "between carpets" mean in this context?
Can you help me with the phrase "between carpets"? Is it an idiom or they are just saying that they are buying new carpets or something like that? They are chatting at a dinner.
EDWARD: And ...
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What does it mean "to make someone a card"?
During the Hats’ War, Tsarina Elizabeth of Russia, for propaganda
reasons, had promised Finland independent statehood, a preposterous
notion but one which made Finland an intriguing card in the ...
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"Play hothand", what does it mean?
What does it mean? All Quiet On The Western Front
“I wish I could play hothand with her once, my hat——” Haie beams, proud that his girl should receive so much appreciation.
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What does the phrase "do whatever I want" mean in this context?
From a NY Times interview with Matty Healy:
Q: What are your commercial ambitions these days? Do you think it would be fun for the 1975 to have a No. 1 hit or a TikTok moment?
A: It’s difficult to be ...
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What does the phrase "I fish hold of it" mean, in the novel "All Quiet on the Western Front"?
I encountered this phrase in the novel All Quiet on the Western Front:
He has buried his face in his hands, his helmet has fallen off I fish hold of it and try to put it back on his head.
What does &...
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"Shave in the open"
What does "shave in the open" mean? All Quiet On The Western Front
We stick out our chests, shave in the open, shove our hands in our pockets, inspect the recruits and feel ourselves stone-...
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The meaning of "seven’s sixteen and a half"
“That’s what Mother Gunga thinks, is it,” he said, reading. “Keep cool, young ’un. We’ve got all our work cut out for us. Let’s see. Muir wired half an hour ago: ‘Floods on the Ramgunga. Look out.’ ...
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"Haul down one's colours"
What does it mean? I reckoned it was a set phrase of sort but couldn't find it. "Colours" must refer to a flag, right? It's hard to grasp the meaning still. All Quiet On The Western Front
...
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What is the meaning of "There’s definitely a ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ kind of thing, which is where, listen, we’ve never known what to do…"?
Recently, Ed Sheeran apparently asked The 1975 to open for him on tour. Matty Healy went ahead and turned down that offer, despite how massive it was financially. Now, he’s explained why.
In a new New ...
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What does "even" mean in this contex?
Does "even" mean something here?
Who the fuck? Even. Was this douche?
Piper forced her chin up and followed the beast to the back
of the bar—the bar which was essentially the size of her ...
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"Carroty head", what could it possibly mean?
What do you think "carroty head" means in this sentence? Is this supposed to refer to hair color, head shape, maybe? It's from the opening page of Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front:
...
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What does "she'd eat you up a bit" mean?
This comes from the movie "Munich" by Steven Spielberg. The context is a bit lacking because the conversation takes place between two extras in the movie who are sitting at the bar while the ...
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Does "lines of work" have to contain the meaning of earning money?
I wrote the example. An American freelancer I hired to check my essay added the bold sentence for me. According to the dictionary, "lines of work" means the work that a person does regularly ...
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Is there a phrase or expression that means "riding a horse with another person"? [duplicate]
Is there a phrase or expression that means "riding a horse with another person"?
I can't think of a shorter more concise way to say it. The best I could manage is "riding a horse as a ...
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How can I replace "everything" with an idiom? [closed]
I forgot an idiom that means "everything". "Lock, stock, and barrel", "the whole gamut", it's not that. Could you remind me of it? I think it contains "and".
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What is the meaning of these two words in this context?
The text is from the novel "Salem's Lot":
It was the tenth of
January, just about the time most folks are learning to live comfortably with all
the New Year’s resolutions they broke, and ...
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Meaning of "under x-substance-limiting condition."
I am not sure if the following sentence means that if the more biotin the more amino acid, or vice versa, the more biotin the less amino acid:
This amino acid accumulation in the medium occurs only ...
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Is the phrase “In the morning on Friday” correct?
Like the title said, is the phrase “In the morning on Friday” correct? And if it is correct to say “In the XXX on XXX”, then when EXACTLY should we use “in” and “on” for sections of a day? If no, why?
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Meaning of a sentence based on the positioning of the word "using"
I have a question about the following sentence:
Designed and built APIs using Python and MySQL to support the development of microservices.
For you who are reading this sentence for the first time, ...
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"come to see" (about the meeting place) [closed]
Why don’t you come to see your friends more often?
Does "come to see" mean to visit them on their place or not necessarily? Can it be somewhere outside, in a cafe or club?
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Does 'any more of a unit test' mean 'no further unit tests' or 'not longer unit tests than'?
The subject of my question is a programming concept, more exactly about Test-Driven Development (TDD). Regarding Uncle Bob’s Three Laws:
You are not allowed to write any production code unless it is ...
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Optimal structure of a sentence [closed]
I have a couple of questions about the following sentence:
I built a model to classify whether or not a tweet is about economy using NLP techniques.
Is this a case where or not can be omitted? The ...
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What does 'on questions' mean?
In the medal system of this very site, there is such a golden medal, Electorate, whose description is as follows.
Vote on 600 questions and 25% or more of total votes are on questions.
What does 'on ...
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"fall to doing something" [closed]
How grammatical is this passage from Of Mice And Men and what does it mean? Is "fall to do something" some phrase I don't know about? We see an ing-verb here, not a full infinitive as the ...
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What does "right up close" mean in this context?
This context comes from the "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" book.
"I'm warning you," he said, putting his large purple face right up close to Harry's, "I'm warning ...
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meaning of “ what though “
I have been reading Poe’s Poetry, and, in one or two poems of his, noticed that he uses “ What though “ which I could not figure its meaning out, As here for instance : Poem [ A Dream ]
What though ...
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use of "claw" in this context
I think the verb "claw means to score. But why does the writer use "claw" instead of "score?" What does it suggest?
Mohamed Salah clawed one back for Liverpool in the 81st ...
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What is "ice orange" and what does it have to do with horses?
What is "ice orange"? I'm pretty sure it's a typo, but can't so far figure out what it really meant:
Going up the road toward home the road was smooth and slippery for a while and the ice ...
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What does the word ''authority'' mean?
In the following passage, I know here the word "authority" should not be the meaning: "political or administrative power and control", it's not suitable in this context.
May be, I ...
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What does the phrase ''blind chance'' mean?
in the following sentence, how should I take the meaning of the phrase ''blind chance''?
Should I take as ''uncontrolled coincidence''? or what? especially the word ''blind'' makes difficult to know ...
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What does "men will be men" mean without context?
I have seen in many scenarios the phrase "men will be men" in a negative sense, but I don't know why it means what it means using that four word permutation. The same goes for 'boys will be ...
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