he |
1. pron. (personal) A male person or animal already known or implied. | |
2. pron. (personal, sometimes proscribed, see usage notes) A person whose gender is unknown or irrelevant. | |
The rulebook clearly states that "if any student is caught cheating, he will be expelled", and you were caught cheating, were you not, Anna? | |
3. pron. (personal) An animal whose gender is unknown. | |
4. n. The game of tag, or it, in which the player attempting to catch the others is called "he". | |
5. n. (informal) A male. | |
Alex totally is a he. | |
6. n. The name of the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets (Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic and others). | |
was |
1. v. first-person singular past of be. | |
2. v. third-person singular past of be. | |
be |
1. v. (intransitive, now literary) To exist; to have real existence. | |
2. v. (with there, or dialectally it, as dummy subject) To exist. | |
There is just one woman in town who can help us. (or, dialectally:) It is just one woman in town who can help us. | |
3. v. (intransitive) To occupy a place. | |
The cup is on the table. | |
4. v. (intransitive) To occur, to take place. | |
When will the meeting be? | |
5. v. (intransitive, in perfect tenses, without predicate) Elliptical form of "be here", "go to and return from" or similar. | |
The postman has been today, but my tickets have still not yet come. | |
I have been to Spain many times. | |
Moscow, huh? I've never been, but it sounds fascinating. | |
6. v. (transitive, copulative) Used to indicate that the subject and object are the same. | |
Knowledge is bliss. | |
Hi, I’m Jim. | |
7. v. (transitive, copulative, mathematics) Used to indicate that the values on either side of an equation are the same. | |
3 times 5 is fifteen. | |
8. v. (transitive, copulative) Used to indicate that the subject plays the role of the predicate nominal. | |
François Mitterrand was president of France from 1981 to 1995. | |
9. v. (transitive, copulative) Used to connect a noun to an adjective that describes it. | |
The sky is blue. | |
10. v. (transitive, copulative) Used to indicate that the subject has the qualities described by a noun or noun phrase. | |
The sky is a deep blue today. | |
11. v. (transitive, auxiliary) Used to form the passive voice. | |
The dog was drowned by the boy. | |
12. v. (transitive, auxiliary) Used to form the continuous forms of various tenses. | |
The woman is walking. | |
I shall be writing to you soon. | |
We liked to chat while we were eating. | |
13. v. (archaic, auxiliary) Used to form the perfect aspect with certain intransitive verbs, most of which indicate motion. Often still used for "to go". | |
14. v. (transitive, auxiliary) Used to form future tenses, especially the future periphrastic. | |
I am to leave tomorrow. | |
I would drive you, were I to obtain a car. | |
15. v. (transitive, copulative) Used to link a subject to a measurement. | |
This building is three hundred years old. | |
I am 75 kilograms. | |
He’s about 6 feet tall. | |
16. v. (transitive, copulative, with a cardinal numeral) Used to state the age of a subject in years. | |
I’m 20. (= I am 20 years old.) | |
17. v. (with a dummy subject) it Used to indicate the time of day. | |
It is almost eight. (= It is almost eight o’clock.) | |
It’s 8:30 read eight-thirty in Tokyo. | |
What time is it there? It’s night. | |
18. v. (With since) Used to indicate passage of time since the occurrence of an event. | |
It has been three years since my grandmother died. (similar to My grandmother died three years ago, but emphasizes the intervening period) | |
It had been six days since his departure, when I received a letter from him. | |
19. v. (often, impersonal, with it as a dummy subject) Used to indicate weather, air quality, or the like. | |
It is hot in Arizona, but it is not usually humid. | |
Why is it so dark in here? | |
20. v. (dynamic/lexical "be", especially in progressive tenses, conjugated non-suppletively in the present tense, see usage notes) To exist or behave in a certain way. | |
"What do we do?" "We be ourselves.". | |
Why is he being nice to me? | |
prostrate |
1. adj. Lying flat, face-down. | |
2. adj. Emotionally devastated. | |
3. adj. Physically incapacitated from environmental exposure or debilitating disease. | |
He was prostrate from the extreme heat. | |
4. adj. (botany) Trailing on the ground; procumbent. | |
5. v. (often reflexive) To lie flat or facedown. | |
6. v. To throw oneself down in submission (also figurative). | |
7. v. To cause to lie down, to flatten; (figuratively) to overcome or overpower. | |
from |
1. prep. With the source or provenance of or at. | |
This wine comes from France. | |
I got a letter from my brother. | |
2. prep. With the origin, starting point or initial reference of or at. | |
He had books piled from floor to ceiling. | |
He left yesterday from Chicago. | |
Face away from the wall! | |
3. prep. (mathematics, now uncommon) Denoting a subtraction operation. | |
20 from 31 leaves 11. | |
4. prep. With the separation, exclusion or differentiation of. | |
An umbrella protects from the sun. | |
He knows right from wrong. | |
the |
1. art. Definite grammatical article that implies necessarily that an entity it articulates is presupposed; something already mentioned, or completely specified later in that same sentence, or assumed already | |
I’m reading the book. (Compare I’m reading a book.) | |
The street in front of your house. (Compare A street in Paris.) | |
The men and women watched the man give the birdseed to the bird. | |
2. art. Used before a noun modified by a restrictive relative clause, indicating that the noun refers to a single referent defined by the relative clause. | |
The street that runs through my hometown. | |
3. art. Used before an object considered to be unique, or of which there is only one at a time. | |
No one knows how many galaxies there are in the universe. | |
God save the Queen! | |
4. art. Used before a superlative or an ordinal number modifying a noun, to indicate that the noun refers to a single item. | |
That was the best apple pie ever. | |
5. art. Added to a superlative or an ordinal number to make it into a substantive. | |
That apple pie was the best. | |
6. art. Introducing a singular term to be taken generically: preceding a name of something standing for a whole class. | |
7. art. Used before an adjective, indicating all things (especially persons) described by that adjective. | |
Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable. | |
8. art. Used to indicate a certain example of (a noun) which is usually of most concern or most common or familiar. | |
No one in the whole country had seen it before. | |
I don't think I'll get to it until the morning. | |
9. art. Used before a body part (especially of someone previously mentioned), as an alternative to a possessive pronoun. | |
A stone hit him on the head. (= “A stone hit him on his head.”) | |
10. art. When stressed, indicates that it describes an object which is considered to be best or exclusively worthy of attention. | |
That is the hospital to go to for heart surgery. | |
11. adv. 1=With a comparative ormore and a verb phrase, establishes a parallel with one or more other such comparatives. | |
The hotter the better. | |
The more I think about it, the weaker it looks. | |
The more money donated, the more books purchased, and the more happy children. | |
It looks weaker and weaker, the more I think about it. | |
12. adv. 1=With a comparative, and often withfor it, indicates a result more like said comparative. This can be negated withnone. | |
It was a difficult time, but I’m the wiser for it. | |
It was a difficult time, and I’m none the wiser for it. | |
I'm much the wiser for having had a difficult time like that. | |
extreme |
1. adj. Of a place, the most remote, farthest or outermost. | |
At the extreme edges, the coating is very thin. | |
2. adj. In the greatest or highest degree; intense. | |
He has an extreme aversion to needles, and avoids visiting the doctor. | |
3. adj. Excessive, or far beyond the norm. | |
His extreme love of model trains showed in the rails that criscrossed his entire home. | |
4. adj. Drastic, or of great severity. | |
I think the new laws are extreme, but many believe them necessary for national security. | |
5. adj. Of sports, difficult or dangerous; performed in a hazardous environment. | |
Television has begun to reflect the growing popularity of extreme sports such as bungee jumping and skateboarding. | |
6. adj. (archaic) Ultimate, final or last. | |
the extreme hour of life | |
7. n. The greatest or utmost point, degree or condition. | |
8. n. Each of the things at opposite ends of a range or scale. | |
extremes of temperature | |
9. n. A drastic expedient. | |
10. n. (mathematics) Either of the two numbers at the ends of a proportion, as 1 and 6 in 1:2=3:6. | |
11. adv. (archaic) Extremely. | |
heat |
1. n. Thermal energy. | |
This furnace puts out 5000 BTUs of heat. That engine is really throwing off some heat. Removal of heat from the liquid caused it to turn into a solid. | |
2. n. The condition or quality of being hot. | |
Stay out of the heat of the sun! | |
3. n. An attribute of a spice that causes a burning sensation in the mouth. | |
The chili sauce gave the dish heat. | |
4. n. A period of intensity, particularly of emotion. | |
It's easy to make bad decisions in the heat of the moment. | |
5. n. An undesirable amount of attention. | |
The heat from her family after her DUI arrest was unbearable. | |
6. n. (slang) The police. | |
The heat! Scram! | |
7. n. (slang) One or more firearms. | |
8. n. (baseball) A fastball. | |
The catcher called for the heat, high and tight. | |
9. n. A condition where a mammal is aroused sexually or where it is especially fertile and therefore eager to mate. | |
The male canines were attracted by the female in heat. | |
10. n. A preliminary race, used to determine the participants in a final race | |
The runner had high hopes, but was out of contention after the first heat. | |
11. n. One cycle of bringing metal to maximum temperature and working it until it is too cool to work further. | |
I can make a scroll like that in a single heat. | |
12. n. A hot spell. | |
The children stayed indoors during this year's summer heat. | |
13. n. Heating system; a system that raises the temperature of a room or building. | |
I'm freezing; could you turn on the heat? | |
14. n. The output of a heating system. | |
During the power outage we had no heat because the controls are electric. Older folks like more heat than the young. | |
15. v. To cause an increase in temperature of an object or space; to cause something to become hot (often with "up"). | |
I'll heat up the water. | |
16. v. To excite or make hot by action or emotion; to make feverish. | |
17. v. To excite ardour in; to rouse to action; to excite to excess; to inflame, as the passions. | |
18. v. To arouse, to excite (sexually). | |
The massage heated her up. | |