1. daughter
– Part Of Speech: noun
– Meaning: A girl or woman in relation to either or both of her parents.
– Example:
+ Parents encourage daughters to sweat and grunt in physical competition, and even supermodels sport muscles obtained by logging hours at the gym.
+ Like JM Coetzee’s Disgrace, the novel which pipped it to the prize, Fasting, Feasting has a storyline which revolves around parents and daughters.
+ Maybe all the parents who warned their daughters not to date poets were right…
+ There is a widely held assumption, especially among those who have daughters, that girls thrive in the absence of boys, but that boys do better with a female presence in the classroom.
+ Therefore, it was the sons who took responsibility for the care of their elderly parents rather than daughters.
+ In the majority of our traditions, it is common to see parents encourage their young daughters to abandon school and get married at ages which are prohibited by law.
+ Parents discouraged their daughters from nurturing such ambitions, and employers considered young women to be temporary help at best.
+ Friends, wives, lovers, parents, daughters of the unlucky ones must also grapple with the consequences.
+ I think a sense of proportion is required – stupid parents will tell their daughters that they must wear make-up when they go out.
2. dear
– Part Of Speech: adjective
– Meaning: Regarded with deep affection.
– Example:
+ a dear friend
+ he is very dear to me
+ Yet there are surely more things close and dear to the human heart than are dreamed of in Carver’s fiction.
+ She’d hate to leave her friends… they were so dear to her.
+ Likewise, we want our lives to reflect those values and goals which are dear to us, and it is a source of pleasure to us when this is so.
+ I admittedly was pretty uneducated about this disease but it has piqued my interest in the last few months as these clients are close relatives of someone very dear to me.
+ The land where the plane had landed, everything belonging to it was intensely dear to me, “he wrote.”
+ It took me a long time to learn the value of friends and I now have many who are very dear to me.
+ Francesca supposed she was lucky to have avoided losing anyone dear to her.
3. December
– Part Of Speech: noun
– Meaning: The twelfth month of the year, in the northern hemisphere usually considered the first month of winter.
– Example:
+ the fuel shortage worsened during December
+ The Assembly meets from September to December each year and at other times as required.
+ The proposals now look likely to be considered for a third time at the December panel meeting.
+ In December he received a summons to appear in court, only to have the case dropped at the last minute.
+ Three Decembers ago, Fernando realized a personal dream of his own when he bought his parents a new house in a better neighborhood than the one in which they had lived since his youth.
+ Mersey has issued profits warnings in the last two Decembers and last week reported in-line first half profits.
+ It had been a very dry fall but about the second week in December it started to rain.
+ Like most Decembers in the northern United States, the weather was bitterly cold, and Burdick struggled emotionally because she was over 150 miles away from her family.
+ Andrew is keen to hear from mums-to-be who expect their baby in the first week of December.
4. desk
– Part Of Speech: noun
– Meaning: A piece of furniture with a flat or sloping surface and typically with drawers, at which one can read, write, or do other work.
– Example:
+ he sat at his desk, reading reports
+ Bloom rummaged in his desk drawer and pulled out a laminated map of the building.
+ He started grabbing various things and slamming them against walls, bureau drawers, and desks, not caring what he was throwing.
+ They’re worried that they’re vulnerable to another attack while officials sit behind desks writing reports.
+ You can drop under a sturdy piece of furniture, a desk or table and hold on until the shaking stops.
+ She sat down on the chair at her desk and pulled a small mirror out of the top desk drawer.
+ His specialty was making caskets and exquisite pieces of household furniture, including walnut desks and mantel pieces.
+ He took out the strap and slammed the belt down on the flat surface of the desk for emphasis.
+ From one of the drawers in her desk she pulled out a yellowing piece of paper.
5. dictionary
– Part Of Speech: noun
– Meaning: A book or electronic resource that lists the words of a language (typically in alphabetical order) and gives their meaning, or gives the equivalent words in a different language, often also providing information about pronunciation, origin, and usage.
– Example:
+ I’ll look up ‘love’ in the dictionary
+ the website gives access to an online dictionary
+ Often he would search for minutes in his Arabic-English dictionary for the exact word he wanted.
+ I can remember my schoolteacher telling me to look a word up in the dictionary.
+ Later reference to a dictionary illuminated the answer, but by that stage all had been revealed.
+ On the surface, both are among the simplest of words in the French dictionary.
+ We had to get up at one point and look up a word in the dictionary because he didn’t believe me that it existed.
+ Mark Twain claimed never to have coined a word as far as he knew, though historical dictionaries list him as the first user of many.
+ Questions as to the meaning of words in documents can rarely, if ever, be determined conclusively by reference to dictionaries.
