New answers tagged meaning-in-context
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The verb is scrape together:
scrape together or scrape up
vb
(tr, adverb) to collect with difficulty: to scrape together money for a new car.
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Data scraping is a technique in which a computer program extracts data from human-readable output coming from another program
Wiki
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"Call the shots" and "call your shots" are different idioms.
Someone who "calls the shots" is simply someone who is in charge. It is equivalent to saying they make decisions and give orders.
"Call your shots (before you take them)" refers to announcing your intention of doing something before you do it. I believe it comes from pool, snooker and other ...
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You correctly identify a possible source of confusion. There is no unique way in English to define which drawer you mean, but your first two example sentences are unidiomatic and your third is over-complicated.
'Top drawer' should be clear. So also is 'bottom drawer'. 'Second drawer from the bottom' is also clear, as would be 'next drawer down from the top'....
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All the way up has been already explained up there. But, to make things simpler, ALL THE WAY UP (UNTIL) is a long way of saying UNTIL.
Example:
He was top of his class all the way up (until) grade 9.
is the same as
He was top of his class UNTIL grade 9.
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To mean that something has moved down from its previous state of priority.
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In this context, yes, it seems ‘nature’ and ‘natural environment’ can be used interchangeably - since ‘natural environment’, here, is referring to the nature in said environment.
As you seem to have already noticed, the terms cannot always be used for the same reason.
For example, ‘nature’ can be used to describe natural surroundings as well as the ...
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Receipts here refers to sales income - the money s/he receives from selling the products.
So the passage is saying that the manufacturer decides on a level of production that will bring him/her an acceptable profit.
Increasing his/her production would raise costs as much as the increased income from sales. That's to say that it would bring the ...
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The word sophisticated comes from an Ancient Greek word, Sofist, which was a teacher of philosophy, math, music and many other things. Sophisticated means that a person is knowledgeable about many different subjects. It is often used to mean that the person is well educated, has good manners or is interesting to talk to.
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Agree it’s referring to mornings so difficult that it seems hard to tie your shoe laces. Shoe laces could also be used in a very desperate suicide attempt which gives the lyric another layer of meaning (you ain’t allowed to have them on a psych ward).
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The phrase the establishment in a nation (here, France) or a society or organisation, means the powerful senior people, especially those who approve of the way that society is currently set up (established):
the establishment
the important and powerful people who control a country or an
organization, especially those who support the existing ...
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A crescendo can happen independently, by itself, or because of something causing it. In this case the person is saying that they 'facilitated' it. In other words, they were the cause. They made the crescendo happen.
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When the person responding says, 'If they have food, I'll eat it', they are saying that it doesn't matter what restaurant they're visiting. If they're in a restaurant, then they will eat the food there. They're ignoring the question about which restaurant is their favorite and implying that they don't have a favorite. They're saying that they like any ...
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It is not “wrong” to refer to how strongly heat is transferred, but it doesn’t fit well here. It has a different meaning that is not commonly applied to a transfer. When we describe a process we are more likely to talk about how well, how completely or how quickly the process occurs, not how strongly it occurs. We are usually discussing “degree” not ...
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crescendo noun
1 b : the peak of a gradual increase : climax
// ... complaints about stifling smog conditions reach a crescendo ...
— Down Beat
(M-W)
An orgasm is referred to as a sexual climax. Crescendo and big-O are euphemisms for orgasm. In other words, the speaker helped their partner reach an orgasm.
climax noun
1 c : orgasm
(M-W)
...
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"Get on" here means "get very far, proceed a significant way toward success." The authors may mean either technical or commercial success.
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In engineering, robustness is the state where the technology, product, or process performance is minimally sensitive to factors causing variability (Dr. Genichi Taguchi, expert in telecommunications).
https://vardeman.public.iastate.edu/IE361/f01mini/olberding.pdf
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set to do something = is an idiom,
set to do something means: be about to do something.
Here, the conservative are about to win the election.
set in English used like that means to be in a position to do something, be about to do something or be ready to do something.
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"set to", "expected to" and "poised to" are synonyms in the following context:
In 1916, Hilary Clinton lost an election that she was set to win.
=In 1916, Hilary Clinton lost an election that she was expected to win.
=In 1916, Hilary Clinton lost an election that she was poised to win.
The three sentences have the same meaning.
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I think when the layman uses expressions like, “be there at 6PM sharp”, or “I ran a mile in 6 minutes flat”, they mean that time exactly.
However, I suspect that this usage is incorrect.
In music, A-Sharp (A♯) is just before A, and A-Flat (A♭) is just after A. Music theory used to be a part of classical education, and now it’s an elective.
I think years ...
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The term is from psychology.
Projection is the process of displacing one’s feelings onto a
different person, animal, or object. The term is most commonly used to
describe defensive projection—attributing one’s own unacceptable urges
to another. The concept emerged from Sigmund Freud’s work in the
1890s.
Projection (Psychology Today)
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Liability
What should our liability for this product be?
OR
What should our liability be for this product?
Both are grammatical and mean the same thing.
Structure:
What should X for Y be?
OR
What should X be for Y?
Both are 100% grammatical in English.
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Not much difference in meaning, but a potential difference in emphasis. The former might be used in a context where our children had already been among the topics of discourse, while the latter might be used where the speaker's intent is to introduce the topic, and to focus on it's significance.
But for many speakers, the two versions would be ...
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It means, roughly, specified or required. It has something of the sense of, "If you want X to be true, then you had better handle Y in the manner indicated."
It's often used in the context of standards or protocols.
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The other answers missed the slang sense of astroturf which is "Creating the impression of public support by paying people in the public to pretend to be supportive." So in this sense Woody would be saying the ship isn't really real, its fake.
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I can’t recall the movie details, but from what I can tell here, it appears to be a joke.
AstroTurf is an American subsidiary that produces artificial turf for playing surfaces in sports.
(Wikipedia)
Artificial turf is sometimes referred to as “astroturf”.
But in this context, it appears Woody is trying to assure Buzz that the ship is special by ...
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Many domed stadiums in the United States have artificial grass on the playing field, because there is no sunlight falling on the playing field to allow real grass. One example of this is the Houston Astrodome. Because of its association with the Astrodome they call this artificial grass Astroturf.
The "turf" part of this word is a genuine English word that ...
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It means that she tricked, trumped or outsmarted him with her political actions
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She was more effective [than Trump] in her [political] moves.
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The first sentence introduces the three topics of the writer's next paragraph.
The writer imagines a boundary, an imaginary line or limit, which will no longer confine computing power to cloud computing centers. The dimensions he/she refers to later are those of time and space: "the two most important dimensions of the physical world". By scenario it ...
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From your comment, you have trouble understanding 'cross-referenced' as it modifies 'journals'.
A journal that's cross-referenced is one where entries in the journal reference each other. Consider an encyclopedia - the article for 'volcano' probably references the articles for 'mountain', 'earthquake', 'lava', and 'plate tectonics', among other ...
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Philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg was much concerned with identifying "correspondences" (parallels) across different areas (religion, science, sociology,...) that might allow principles established in one field of human endeavor / thought to be usefully employed to gain a better understanding of other areas.
The last sentence means Someone like Swedenborg (...
answered Jan 16 at 16:42
FumbleFingers Reinstate Monica
50.3k2 gold badges58 silver badges132 bronze badges
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In simple words: journals those are very carefully maintained and verified from different resources.
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In this context, 'to make more definite' ( https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/solidify ), to give the learners a more clear understanding of those concepts and their practical aspects.
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'It's my party' is a catchphrase from the 1963 eponymous hit song by Lesley Gore, which has become an idiom of the modern English language.
The story behind its title is here:
https://www.today.com/popculture/lesley-gores-its-my-party-story-behind-song-t4291
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The construction, "had X been Y ..." means essentially, "X was not Y, but in an alternate universe where X was Y ..." For example,
I would have ordered chicken soup if it had been on the menu.
or
Had proper security been in place, the prisoner would still be in his cell.
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It's your party. =
applies to any situation that exists where two people are conversing and one of them says this.
In this case, Dumbledore is saying if they are lost it's because of whatever Harry has done or is up to.
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For every verb in the language except one, you express a hypothetical conditional by using the past of the verb, so
If I come ...
is not purely hypothetical: I may come, or I may not; but
If I came ...
is hypothetical: I didn't come/am not coming/am not intending to come, but if I did ...
Exactly one verb has a special form for this, and that is ...
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It is a saying that means "this is your idea/responsibility/choice"
The idea is that if you organize a party you get to pick the place, decorations and other details.
In the book, Harry chose the place where they are subconciously but it was his choice
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Root in this sense means something that was the basis for causing/creating X, or was instrumental in doing so. It's a vague term so you can't evaluate it directly as ideology, tenets, or anything else.
The new Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, differed little from the White Paper, which contained the legislation's philosophical roots.
This means the ...
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Their special work in this case, means the "North American aborigines" appearing in spirit form.
Nature of an expiation and atonement means that this is payment for something they've done.
The author contends that these spirits have told him that the reason they manifest in spirit form in the presence of a medium is to atone for something. The author ...
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As the final sentence of the short chapter,
He launches forth.
on the face of it, simply means, “He sets off.”, “He starts forward.” However, the word choice here adds considerably more to the meaning.
Using the dramatic “launches” rather than a simpler synonym like “starts” or “begins” gives the sense that it is a significant undertaking that is ...
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Get down and dirty can mean a lot of things and unless the author elaborates, we can't know specifically what he or she means.
That said, 'get down and dirty' is used in the context of the tabloid press and an article which points out the exploitation, bullying, publishing of private information, etc. by the tabloids.
It's likely, although open to ...
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The writer of the website asks
Can you pick out what’s odd in the below collection of images?
Therein follows a set of eight seemingly random images ranging from a peacock to a salt cellar. I thought the reader had to identify the photo which had nothing in common with the other seven images but I was wrong, all the images are “odd” because they have ...
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It's a translation from poetry, and we often have inversion from usual grammar in very literary English.
The meaning is what we would now say "... if they only knew how to use it
Some learners find this difficult too, and it can be approximated by "... but sadly they don't know how to use it"
This original is Claudian, "natura beatis / Omnibus esse dedit, ...
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This is very archaic usage, possibly poetic even then (where does this come from, incidentally?)
Possibly the easiest way to understand this is to replace the word 'but' with 'if only' - (and a quick re-ordering) - to give:
if only they knew how to use it
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cramming is a colloquial word for urgent studying, such as immediately before an exam. Different countries and schools use different words for this.
It follows "to cram" which is to put more into a container than usual.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cramming_(education)
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He launches forth. means simply "He starts forward".
It has many possible meanings and echoes beyond that, probably better suited to Literature stack exchange than here. You will see in comments disagreement about what overtones are implied and what exactly was started.
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Exempting something or someone, particularly in a legal context as it is used here, means relieving them from an obligation, duty, tax, etc. that would apply if the exemption didn’t exist. It is common in legislation to impose an obligation widely in the first instance and then “exempt” or “carve out” the particular instances were the underlying government ...
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