a. relatively low annual rainfall of 25 to 50 centimeters
E.g. You can't grow plants native to the semiarid Middle East in Florida.
a. arousing or intended to arouse strong curiosity, interest, or reaction
E.g. I have no way of confirming this so called sensational story, you have to dig for more stories on this to be sure.
n. sense; acuteness; capacity of an organ or organism to respond to stimulation
E.g. It's not clear exactly which part of the film is causing concern, but general political sensitivity within a volatile region seems likely.
n. idea or expression marked by excessive sentiment; liking for sentimental things
E.g. Along with a new vision of love, sentimentalism presented a new view of human nature which prized feeling over thinking, passion over reason, and personal instincts over social duties.
v. set or keep apart; disunite; divide; disconnect
E.g. It was scandalous to separate the mother and the children that way.
n. serial arrangement in which things follow in logical order or a recurrent pattern
E.g. Scientists unveiled the genome sequence of rice - a tool of great potential use to researchers trying to develop new strains of rice with higher yields.
a. saw-like; having a row of sharp or tooth-like projections
E.g. The beech tree is one of many plants that have serrated leaves.
a. serious in feeling or manner; not light, lively, or cheerful
E.g. No severe or prolonged bodily illness followed this incident; it only gave my nerves a shock of which I feel the reverberation to this day.
n. waste pipe that carries away sewage or surface water; someone who sews
E.g. A sewer is an artificial pipe or system used to remove human liquid waste and to provide drainage.
n. waste matter; drainage; waste pipe that carries away sewage or surface water
E.g. Vancouver operates 485 km of sewerage conduit ranging in size from 10 cm to 2.9 m diameter.
ad. steeply; changing suddenly in direction and degree; acutely
E.g. Immigration, which census figures show declined sharply from the Depression through the 1960s, reached a historic low point this year.
a. very thin or transparent; very steep; absolute or pure
E.g. Wearing nothing but an almost sheer robe, Delilah draped herself against the very steep temple wall.
v. remove from husk; separate kernels from cob; defeat decisively; hit the pitches of hard and regularly
E.g. There are many jobs you can help, shell oysters or peas, please.
n. structure that provides privacy and protection from danger
E.g. I undressed hastily, and sought shelter from cold and darkness in my crib.
n. small signboard outside the office; coarse beach gravel of small water; worn stones and pebbles
E.g. After passing the law exam, she hung out her shingle.
n. sending of cargo; act of sending off something
E.g. A second relief boat, the Isabella , has arrived on Tikopia, and with it the first major shipment of food, water and shelter.
n. unpleasant or disappointing surprise; surprise greatly; effect of such a collision or blow
E.g. The shot of the girl standing in shock is one of the most disturbing scenes you'll witness.
a. struck with fear, dread, or consternation
E.g. Yesterday we took care of 11 people who evaded capture, or hid, or escaped, and they were shocked naturally, but were not physically harmed except for some bruises.
v. wither; decrease in size; become or make shrunken and wrinkled, often by drying
E.g. Leaves die, fall, and shrivel.
a. timid; bashful; easily startled; distrustful
E.g. Seabra's mother said her son - whom she described as shy and religious - wasn't capable of such horror.
n. state that precedes vomiting; disease
E.g. It shivered in my heart, like a suffering child in a cold cradle; sickness and anguish had seized it.
ad. with the side forward; to or from a side
E.g. The car slipped sideways into the ditch.
n. seat, especially a royal seat; throne; rank; grade; sitting before a fortified place; surrounding or investing of a place by army
E.g. To me the most alarming feature of the siege is short rations.
n. white or colorless vitreous insoluble solid
E.g. Silica gel is most commonly encountered in everyday life as beads packed in a semi-permeable plastic.
n. compounds containing silicon, oxygen, and one or more metals; salt of silica acid
E.g. If the child coughs it is given a new medicine, which is said to be some kind of silicate found in bamboos.
a. winding; bending in and out; not morally honest
E.g. The snake moved in a sinuous manner.
a. suspicious; mistrustful; marked by or given to doubt
E.g. We understood why you are in a skeptical attitude before watching these pictures.
n. very tall building with many stories
E.g. The optimum size for a skyscraper is between 50 and 60 stories.
a. having little width in proportion to height or length; long and thin
E.g. She was slender as a willow - and equally graceful, equally erect.
v. slip; move usually in an uncontrolled manner; move smoothly along a surface
E.g. We slide until the bottom of the hill.
a. smooth; being such as to cause things to slip or slide
E.g. Because the sidewalks are very slippery, please be careful.
n. single-mast sailing boat
E.g. In earlier part of the 19th centuries, a sloop of war was a small sailing warship with a single gun deck that carried anything up to eighteen cannon.
n. sleep; state of inactivity or dormancy
E.g. He is calm as a child in dreamless slumber.
n. wood of a coniferous tree
E.g. There's also the question of why softwood was used for external fire exit doors originally?
v. repair or unite by using fusible metal alloy, usually tin and lead
E.g. To fix the leak in the pipes, the plumber planned to solder a couple of joints from which water had been oozing.
a. serious; somber; deeply earnest, serious, and sober
E.g. Finally, his expression solemn, he replied, You are a complex woman, Annabel, despite the fact that you sometimes behave like an impulsive child.
v. request earnestly; seek to obtain by persuasion or formal application
E.g. Knowing she needed to have a solid majority for the budget to pass, the mayor telephoned all the members of the city council to solicit their votes.
n. union of interests, purposes, or sympathies among members of a group; accord
E.g. In the name of solidarity, Europeans are being asked to subsidize irresponsible behavior, in reckless violation of the EU's treaties.
n. state of being alone; seclusion; lonely or secluded place
E.g. She learns that she can feel happiness in solitude, at least for a period of time.
a. wide-ranging knowledge; complex; intellectually appealing
E.g. We could have secured our homeland -- investing in sophisticated new protection for our ports, our trains and our power plants.