I. noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a matter of common sense (= something that requires no more than common sense )
▪
Not driving too fast is just a matter of common sense.
a matter of luck (= something that depends on chance )
▪
Winning is a matter of luck.
a matter of public record formal (= something that has been written down so that anyone can know it )
▪
His salary is a matter of public record.
a matter of routine
▪
This briefing is a matter of routine whenever a new minister takes office.
a matter of...indifference to (= I do not care )
▪
Whether you stay or leave is a matter of total indifference to me .
a matter/point/question of honour (= something you feel you must do because of your moral beliefs )
▪
To my mum, paying bills on time is a point of honour.
a matter/subject of controversy
▪
The right age to vote is a matter of controversy.
as a matter of principle (= because of moral beliefs about right and wrong )
▪
As a matter of principle one should never yield to terrorism.
be a matter for debate (= be something that people should discuss )
▪
The future of the police force is a matter for public debate.
be a matter for speculation (= be unknown )
▪
The precise nature of the deal is a matter for speculation.
be a matter of concern
▪
Elderly people in particular feel that crime is a matter of concern for them.
be a matter of conscience (= something that you must make a moral judgment about )
▪
Whether you vote or not is a matter of conscience.
be a matter of debate (= be something that people have discussed )
▪
The effectiveness of the government’s policy has been a matter of fierce debate.
be a matter of personal preference (= be something that you can choose, according to what you like )
▪
Which one you decide to buy is just a matter of personal preference.
clarify issues/a statement/matters etc
▪
Could you clarify one or two points for me?
▪
Reporters asked him to clarify his position say exactly what his beliefs are on welfare reform.
crux of the matter
▪
The crux of the matter is how do we prevent a flood occurring again?
dark matter
deal with an issue/matter/question
▪
New laws were introduced to deal with the issue.
delicate matter
▪
There’s something I have to speak to you about – it’s a delicate matter .
discuss the matter/issue formal (= discuss a subject or problem )
▪
The two leaders met to discuss the issue further.
fiscal matter
▪
a fiscal matter
front matter
grey matter
have no choice in the matter
▪
The village people had no choice in the matter.
in a matter of seconds (= in a very short time )
▪
At least 30 shots were fired in a matter of seconds .
not that it mattered (= it did not matter )
▪
Janice had lost some weight, not that it mattered .
pressing problem/matter/need etc
▪
Poverty is a more pressing problem than pollution.
printed matter
resolve an issue/matter/question
▪
Has the issue been resolved yet?
settle a question/matter
▪
It is the area of pricing which may settle the question of which to buy.
sth is a matter of opinion (= used to say that you disagree, or that people disagree about something )
▪
"He’s a very nice man." "That’s a matter of opinion," thought Sam.
sth is a matter of taste (= different people have different opinions about what is good or right )
▪
Which of the two methods you use is largely a matter of taste.
straightforward matter/task/process etc
▪
For someone who can’t read, shopping is by no means a straightforward matter.
subject matter
▪
The movie has been rated ‘R’ due to adult subject matter.
substantive matters/issues
▪
The State Department reported that substantive discussions had taken place with Beijing.
take the matter up
▪
The hospital manager has promised to take the matter up with the member of staff involved.
take...matter further
▪
The police do not propose to take the matter further .
the end of the matter
▪
If you think that’s the end of the matter, you’re mistaken.
the truth of the matter
▪
The truth of the matter is that we don’t know what really happened.
To complicate matters further
▪
To complicate matters further , differences exist as regards legal systems, trade customs, and language.
trivial problem/matter/complaint etc
▪
We were punished for the most trivial offences.
turn the matter/problem/responsibility etc over to sb
▪
I’m turning the project over to you.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
different
▪
But when you use it, it's an entirely different matter !
▪
But the saying and the doing are different matters and are often worlds apart.
▪
But narrative tone is a different and affirmative matter .
▪
In antiquity it was believed the different classes of animals were composed of different kinds of matter .
▪
That would have been a very different matter .
▪
But having to make three straight pars to survive a cut is a different matter .
▪
Onstage, though, it is a different matter .
▪
However, in the workplace, where productivity thrives on positive relationships, it can be a different matter .
financial
▪
The mystery surrounding the identity of property owners can be partly explained by a typical Victorian reticence concerning financial matters .
▪
Carl was in charge of all the financial and business matters .
▪
Dennis was a genuine enthusiast for financial matters .
▪
And sales leadership in turn meant their agenda-setting obligations specifically for financial and business matters .
▪
He's the manager, and looks after all financial matters .
▪
Control over financial matters Constitutionally, Parliament has control over taxation and expenditure.
▪
The importance and complexity of financial matters have caused special procedures to be evolved to deal with them.
▪
Similarly the redundancy package was geared to match the relocation package so that staff would not base their decision on financial matters .
important
▪
At the Kleiber household in Poplar, these dramatic events passed unnoticed: Ernest and Rosie had more important matters in mind.
▪
He wasted no mental effort on the problem, for this morning he had more important matters on his mind.
▪
There is, however, the equally important matter of safeguarding mineral deposits.
▪
My position on this important matter has nothing whatsoever to do with the rational, of course.
▪
Seriously, though, it is important that the matter of advertising is raised every so often, for a number of reasons.
▪
We moved on to other more important matters .
▪
Some of the important matters that the hon. Gentleman raises have been the concern of several Select Committees.
▪
All night long, serious, important matters were addressed; vital information was exchanged.
legal
▪
There was also very little demand for help on legal matters and employment issues.
▪
He said this was a legal matter .
▪
He became a priest in 1284, aiding his parishioner5 in both spiritual and legal matters .
▪
Full time welfare officers represent individuals at pension tribunals, and are able to offer professional advice on legal matters and housing.
▪
He did research on legal matters for Carmine and knew a great deal about his holdings and operations.
▪
Most oriental codes deal with legal matters only: morals and religion belong elsewhere.
organic
▪
This turned the organic matter into liquid bitumen, which squeezed into pores and fractures in the rock.
▪
Researchers have seen their kind before in sewers and other places where organic matter is highly concentrated.
▪
When the manures rot down they add organic matter to the soil, which turns into humus.
▪
Urban refuse is 75 percent organic matter .
▪
Plants with a fibrous root system, creating plenty of organic matter , do most to improve the soil structure.
▪
Make sure the soil in your shade garden is rich in organic matter .
▪
The long roots reach the tank bottom, where the medium should be rich in organic matter , such as plant detritus.
▪
Humus: The end product of decomposed organic matter such as leaves.
other
▪
The Bill does not deal with other key matters .
▪
Perhaps the United States itself would benefit in the long run from a more flexible policy on sterling and other matters .
▪
And the other matters that fall to the conveyancer to arrange will remain unchanged.
▪
Earth not only grew by aggregation from a cloud of particles, but by collisions with other cosmic matter .
▪
Some had hair, tissue or other matter attached to them.
▪
There is just one other matter on which I shall be grateful for information.
▪
He reserves the right to take part in discussions on other matters .
▪
The other preliminary matter is that the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 does not tell you whether the seller is liable.
personal
▪
This is particularly important when discussing personal matters , such as some one's care plan.
▪
For years, I would natter on, whether it was about business or personal matters .
▪
The nature of this will vary greatly depending on a rose's ancestry, while its appreciation is a very personal matter .
▪
Behavior change is a personal matter .
▪
This is not a personal matter , it's a matter that concerns your business integrity.
▪
It was a personal matter that was taken care of before I was elected to the City Council.
▪
And to every one it's a personal matter .
▪
And I made the mistake of having her type up all the tapes that I was sure contained no personal matter .
private
▪
He was less inclined to be so, it seemed, about private matters .
▪
That is strictly a private matter between a priest and a sinner.
▪
Officials there are believed to be dealing with it as a private matter .
▪
Child-rearing is considered a private matter , and there is no intervention unless a child is abused or neglected.
▪
Boy sensed that this was a private matter , something to think about but not talk about.
▪
Many of them look at it as a private family matter .
▪
On the one hand, bringing up children is seen as a purely private matter .
▪
Some organizations consider their employment policies to be a private matter of contract between the company and its employees.
serious
▪
The seeking of business success is far too difficult and serious a matter to be done in a cosy way.
▪
Inquiry is a serious matter and should be done boldly, whether applied to innovation or ponderous theoretical matter.
▪
Losing a lamb or two was not unusual, but a dead calf was a serious matter .
▪
A politicized game is made out of serious matters to scholars and the field.
▪
But I must resist the temptation to treat so serious a matter with levity.
▪
This was clearly a serious matter .
▪
It will be a most serious matter .
▪
They judged only minor cases; more serious matters were referred to the higher courts.
simple
▪
Although the optimum phase resistance can be calculated, in practice it is a fairly simple matter to determine the optimum experimentally.
▪
Washing her clothes was no simple matter with Hazel there.
▪
The lodging of a compensation form, a simple enough matter , here required a respect for ritual.
▪
This in turn made it a simple matter to adapt Watt's engine to provide rotary motion.
▪
It is not a simple matter of informing people what to do as you seem to think.
▪
After that it is a simple matter of pumping and reeling it to the net.
▪
Becoming a hooligan within the Rowdies group is not a simple matter .
▪
Yet defining capacity in banking is no simple matter .
subject
▪
Marcus Leatherdale's photographs look downright mainstream by comparison, though his subject matter may include the bizarre and the theatrically far-out.
▪
The poignancy of that piece is the circumstance of its composition, not its subject matter .
▪
Unlike their Soviet counterparts, few western texts indulged in lengthy discussion of a work's subject matter .
▪
Rothko would have justly replied that it was precisely in order to convey humanist content that he had dispensed with subject matter .
▪
The subject matter should make a technical contribution to the state of the art.
▪
The subject matter and the medium towards which the release is aimed are perhaps the two most important as to think about.
▪
Category of contract: all contracts for sale or hire purchase of goods. Subject matter of contract: all goods.
▪
Indeed the subject matter of many of Mercer's plays - which was often Mercer - could just as well have been Goodwin.
■ VERB
complicate
▪
Inevitable political interest in local development will also continue to complicate matters .
▪
This does not invalidate Freud's approach, but it does complicate matters more than he suggests.
▪
Reviews instances in which the Agency's activities have complicated matters or deterred developers from going ahead.
▪
The other valentines were a more complicated matter .
▪
To complicate matters some cells behave linearly under some conditions and non-linearly under others.
▪
For many novices, the mechanics of sending e-mail are a complicated matter .
consider
▪
I am not saying that the country should not consider the matter .
▪
But before we venture down the road to actual accusation, we must consider the matter very carefully.
▪
The Committee draws attention to any draft which it considers to raise a matter of political or legal importance.
▪
After age thirty-five, contraceptive responsibility was considered a matter of mutual responsibility.
▪
The more she considered the matter , the more she believed that Rose Cottage was as much a victim as she.
▪
During my California days, under the influence of puberty, we did not consider such matters .
▪
The Committee will consider the matter further.
▪
It was a matter of faith; and of imagination, a thing Ralph had never considered before.
deal
▪
The Bill does not deal with other key matters .
▪
Better to sign Hebron now, Netanyahu said, and deal with these other matters afterward.
▪
If at some stage we entered into a single currency, we should have to deal with a different matter .
▪
As you know, few files dealing with intelligence matters are immediately available.
▪
We must deal with the matter carefully.
▪
I shall deal with that matter more fully in my later remarks.
▪
Dudek was surprised at the request; it was not a course designed to deal with such matters .
decide
▪
The alternative would be for the Court of Appeal to decide all the matters before it.
▪
It was finally decided to refer the matter to the departmental assemblies.
▪
Under the Bill there will be problems deciding whether the matter has local or national significance.
▪
Although his ministers were never permitted to decide matters on their own account, Victor Amadeus delegated wide administrative powers to them.
▪
It is for individual members and their firms to decide what subject matter is useful and relevant to their needs.
▪
Yet of myself I can not decide the matter .
▪
One tactic she has used is to decide matters outside the formal Cabinet, either in committees or in informal groups.
▪
George Pataki asked Hill to give the governor some time to decide the matter .
discuss
▪
But then goes on to discuss the matter purely in electoral terms.
▪
He issued a brief statement late Monday noting that he had discussed the matter with Rep.
▪
Members of local branches meet in the evenings to discuss social and business matters .
▪
They would possibly discuss such matters .
▪
Mr Justice Kirkwood also banned the loquacious Kilshaws from discussing the matter with anyone outside the court.
▪
But later Monday the district attorney said he had not discussed the matter with the coroner since his election in December.
▪
It is likely that Celsus discussed the matter at greater length, and with greater clarity.
▪
I backed into the house to discuss the matter with Narendra.
pursue
▪
It is capable of extension, but we shall not pursue the matter here.
▪
I regret that they were unable to pursue the matter any further.
▪
Anxious to avoid further difficulty, Harriet did not pursue the matter .
▪
She wouldn't put it past him but in the brilliant afternoon heat she wasn't inclined to pursue the matter .
▪
There was no need to pursue the matter any further prior to arrest.
▪
If you feel upset by an apparent unfairness, pursue the matter through the grievance procedure.
▪
He would not risk bringing himself and the Kharkov base into disrepute by pursuing the matter any further.
raise
▪
In view of the Government's unsatisfactory reply, I intend to raise that matter again on the Adjournment.
▪
He had not demurred when Helms raised the matter before the closed-door meeting.
▪
It seemed in the end there was little else to do but actually to raise the matter again with Mr Farraday.
▪
The Committee draws attention to any draft which it considers to raise a matter of political or legal importance.
▪
I do not apologise for raising the matter on more than one occasion in interventions and again in my own speech.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
(just) out of interest/as a matter of interest
be another thing/matter
▪
And that is another matter entirely.
▪
But for many of us, reading is another thing altogether.
▪
But the administration that has now begun work in Washington will be another matter altogether.
▪
Defending a U. S. Senate seat is another matter.
▪
Indeed it can: but whether the argument would carry any weight is another matter entirely.
▪
Real art is another matter and, despite recent genuflections towards Rembrandt, a rarity becoming rarer.
▪
Whether I understood them was another matter.
▪
Whether they will be allowed to evict their unwelcome, unsavoury, tenants, from belfries and elsewhere, is another matter.
broach the subject/question/matter etc
▪
But what was still troubling her was the fact that she had still not broached the subject of Janice.
▪
He broached the matter carefully while Marshall put a match to some logs in the grate.
▪
I never broached the subject with him again.
▪
It was half a year, he thought, since she had last broached the subject of his bachelor status.
▪
It was nine o'clock and they had been driven in by the mosquitoes before he broached the subject of the night before.
▪
Now, popular magazines regularly broach the subject.
▪
Popular magazines now broach the subject of mental illness, while the government is encouraging research into mental health.
▪
When, two months later, Father van Exem broached the subject, the Archbishop was actually quite upset about the idea.
confuse the issue/matter/argument etc
▪
His reply was inpart denial of the criticisms, and inpart an attempt to change the issue or confuse the matter.
▪
Making comparisons between brains is a very risky business because there are confounding variables to confuse the issue.
▪
Perceptions, such as hers, distort the truth and confuse the issue.
▪
The Catholic arguments confuse the issue, but this time, for all the wrong reasons, the Pope is infallible.
▪
The politicians, on the lookout for arguments to extend their authoritarianism, jumped at this opportunity to confuse the issue.
▪
This attempt to confuse the issue went unanswered, and Santa Anna continued his preparations to advance on the capital.
▪
This will only serve to confuse the issue.
foreign body/matter/object
▪
Make sure you remove all foreign matter from the wound.
▪
A group of prisoners was carefully picking foreign bodies from a mound of rice before cooking.
▪
Even for the last remaining superpower, domestic issues, not foreign matters, dominate national elections.
▪
Eyes inflamed from trauma or after foreign bodies have been removed.
▪
Lombardy was stopped and arrested on suspicion of rape by force; rape with a foreign object and false imprisonment.
▪
Nothing but the thrill of seeing your name in print, alongside your gut-wrenching tale of finding foreign objects in your food.
▪
Tell everyone to watch out for a foreign body?
▪
The resulting pellets are termed Type 90 reflecting the high percentage of hop material present compared to water and foreign matters.
▪
We describe two cases of accidental aspiration of a foreign body after use of a metered dose inhaler.
it's (only/just) a matter/question of time
▪
But they believe it's only a matter of time before the disease crosses the county boundary.
▪
If he hasn't already killed somebody, then it's only a matter of time .
▪
They think it's only a matter of time before he breaks.
let the matter rest
▪
However, she can rest assured that we will not let the matter rest.
▪
I was going to knock for I was still intrigued by him but Benjamin called me so I let the matter rest .
▪
In her opinion anybody with any sense would let the matter rest there.
▪
Innocent maintained that Philip should have gone to Rome for absolution but for the moment he let the matter rest .
▪
Its opponents, however, were unlikely to let the matter rest where it stood in September 1932.
▪
She simply refused to let the matter rest where it.was.
mind over matter
▪
But mind over matter, I can do it if I really want to, and I will.
▪
He says it's just a case of mind over matter.
▪
There are limits, in other words, to mind over matter.
no laughing matter
▪
Dole and his staff know that age discrimination is no laughing matter.
▪
But Dole and his staff know the age issue is no laughing matter.
▪
But it is no laughing matter.
▪
But the issue of physicians and their handwriting is no laughing matter.
▪
I am a gout sufferer, and it's no laughing matter.
▪
It is no laughing matter, however.
▪
The second Fleet Street sensation was no laughing matter.
▪
They looked as though they knew already that life was no laughing matter.
▪
This Jell-O-head business is no laughing matter.
not see that it matters
pursue the matter/argument/question etc
▪
Anxious to avoid further difficulty, Harriet did not pursue the matter.
▪
I regret that they were unable to pursue the matter any further.
▪
If you feel upset by an apparent unfairness, pursue the matter through the grievance procedure.
▪
It is capable of extension, but we shall not pursue the matter here.
▪
She wouldn't put it past him but in the brilliant afternoon heat she wasn't inclined to pursue the matter.
▪
There was no need to pursue the matter any further prior to arrest.
the fact (of the matter) is
▪
And the fact is Jimi just turned me on more than anybody else, for his music.
▪
But the fact is that none of these are visions of what I recognize as life.
▪
But the fact is that the way we live our lives often assumes a belief about them, one way or another.
▪
But the fact is, it never should have come to that.
▪
Doing the sums Knowing the facts is the first priority.
▪
Let's be realistic, the fact is crime does pay.
▪
So parent power does work, but the fact is it shouldn't ever have to come to that.
▪
Yet the fact is that most adolescents are using drugs, and our drug education programs fail to address that reality.
the nub of the problem/matter/argument etc
▪
Even so, some brain cells were still working, as I stared inwardly at the nub of the problem.
▪
It sounds perfectly reasonable, but you will perceive that here is the nub of the matter.
▪
This is the nub of the matter.
▪
This, however, was the nub of the problem.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪
Dietary fibre makes waste matter from the food we eat pass through our bodies quickly.
▪
Foreign affairs were not the only matters we discussed.
▪
In order to decompose, all vegetable matter needs supplies of nitrogen.
▪
Rick wasn't particularly interested in financial matters.
▪
The matter is being argued and discussed in families up and down the country.
▪
The first item on the agenda today is the matter of public transportation.
▪
the forces exerted between particles of matter
▪
They are investigating an area of space that contains more than the usual amount of matter .
▪
This meeting is being held to deal with the serious matter of possible racism in our hiring practices.
▪
We should discuss the matter ourselves.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪
A foggy reading of foggy matter .
▪
His maudlin drunkenness was not helping matters.
▪
I agree with the hon. Gentleman on this matter .
▪
I appeal to you, Mr. Speaker, to allow us to have a debate on this matter today.
▪
Lovelock's own position on the continuum has been a matter of great interest.
▪
No matter how it worked, the idea raises ethical concerns for the medical profession, two physician-legislators said.
▪
Nobody ever treats me right, no matter how hard I try.
▪
These matters can be tackled in the laboratory. 2 Contamination during or after sampling.
II. verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
else
▪
For those who care about baseball, nothing else mattered on Saturday.
▪
I do not remember where I was, only what I was looking for, as if nothing else mattered .
hardly
▪
But it hardly matters to most of the city's motorists, who are unlikely to be going anywhere.
▪
He was finally caught, and it hardly mattered who had caught him.
▪
This would hardly matter if we still lived in those dim and distant days when nobody took sport too seriously.
▪
Once networked, it hardly matters whether you are on the floor below, or across town.
▪
It hardly mattered , since that route led to the docks he had already seen.
▪
It hardly matters , because examples of bias are there in abundance, and some take fairly systematic forms.
▪
The question whether they make a picture more or less luminous hardly matters .
▪
But, for most, the money hardly mattered .
less
▪
For martial artists it mattered less what form you studied than that you made it a way of life.
▪
It will matter less that the person tackles it as an employee or an external vendor than that the person solves it.
▪
This would matter less if the rest of the year looked easy.
▪
Probably, when our feelings are consistent, the words, perhaps stumbling and inadequate, matter less .
▪
It mattered less what the company clerks and rubber plantation foremen in second class might feel.
▪
With each day she spent in the sun these crucial questions mattered less .
▪
Yet bias in the major media matters less that it did in the NixonAgnew era.
little
▪
It matters little that consumers are still cautious.
▪
On Andean haciendas, it matters little to the man who tills the land whether the product increases.
▪
He didn't often actually handle a painting, but that mattered little to him.
▪
It matters little , the loss is mine.
▪
That the subject was in fact normally accorded Cinderella status mattered little to the many who objected to its being there at all.
▪
To neo-Keynesians it matters little what local authorities spend on revenue account.
▪
What might happen when eventually they arrived at Wrens' Quarters, Ardneavie, mattered little .
▪
In this instance it mattered little .
most
▪
This matters most in fuzzy, creative processes such as product development.
▪
That story is a metaphor for what matters most to me as I help children to write and to live like writers.
▪
Household chores will present a bit of a problem, of course, but the children matter most .
▪
We know what matters most to them.
▪
The message was a public one, but the person it mattered most to was Diana.
▪
Which people who matter most to performance believe that they must change?
▪
The enthusiasm and militancy of 1919 no longer existed in the areas and industries where it had mattered most .
▪
After all, quality matters most in a compelling sage.
much
▪
You've already got Oswin, so it doesn't really matter much .
▪
None of that would matter much if the material could withstand the scrutiny.
▪
In the past, this would not have mattered much , provided one drug was eventually a winner.
▪
Yet he no longer matters much to his national party.
▪
The departmental affiliation of such a course doesn't much matter provided that it is taught by people with relevant research experience.
▪
Not that it matters much at the moment.
▪
The particular colour pattern of a Heliconius presumably does not matter much , so long as it is memorable to the local birds.
▪
The art department still had some fun, but it no longer mattered much off campus.
really
▪
It does not really matter so long as we accept both points of view.
▪
Does it really matter that much in the post-Cold War period?
▪
It didn't really matter which direction it came from.
▪
The first thing he had learned was that nobody really mattered .
▪
Do everything you can to avoid mishaps by being adequately prepared but ask yourself again - does it really matter ?
▪
If Greg Norman hardly ever wins the big one, does it really matter to him?
▪
You've already got Oswin, so it doesn't really matter much.
▪
This time the alleged transgressions involve a violation of constitutional protections that really matter in a democracy.
where
▪
So it doesn't matter where you work.
▪
By wandering aimlessly, all places became equal, and it no longer mattered where he was.
▪
It really doesn't matter where you look.
▪
But it does not matter where issues of capital punishment and deterrence are concerned.
▪
And it doesn't matter where I am, I can call him up.
▪
If a reader comprehends the synthesis, then indeed it does not matter where one commences to read.
▪
Doesn't matter where you hit some one.
▪
What does it matter where one lives?
■ NOUN
deal
▪
Money mattered , mattered a great deal to us.
▪
The details clearly matter a great deal to biologists interested in cloning, and we should look at them.
▪
If a president is paranoid like Nixon, changes like this matter a great deal .
▪
It does not matter a great deal which method is used.
money
▪
The exact quantities of money don't matter .
▪
Create and focus energy and meaningful language because they are the scarcest resources during periods of change. Money and talent matter .
▪
He came from a world where money mattered .
▪
But truly it was not the money that mattered .
▪
The money didn't matter any more.
▪
But, for most, the money hardly mattered .
▪
Good Money didn't matter . Money mattered.
▪
Making money was mostly what mattered .
thing
▪
In a stadium-driven sports world, the only thing that matters is the stadium.
▪
And in any case, he could control the things that mattered very well from there.
▪
Well, the things that really mattered .
▪
It was the only thing that mattered to him, and drew all his concentration and effort.
▪
But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much.
things
▪
And in any case, he could control the things that mattered very well from there.
▪
But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much.
▪
Sanity insists that certain things do matter infinitely more than others.
▪
He drove her back to Greystones, still talking fluently of things that mattered not at all.
▪
There was no sense in worrying, he thought, no sense in troubling himself with things that did not matter .
■ VERB
seem
▪
They turn out a little patchy, but it does not seem to matter to the fish.
▪
It did not seem to matter that she had borne him a son.
▪
It seemed that nothing mattered to her now.
▪
The lack of political drama did not seem to matter to most voters Saturday.
▪
For our purposes here that may not seem to matter very much.
▪
It doesn't seem to matter that the reader has my name and could easily get my address and phone number.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
(just) out of interest/as a matter of interest
be another thing/matter
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And that is another matter entirely.
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But for many of us, reading is another thing altogether.
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But the administration that has now begun work in Washington will be another matter altogether.
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Defending a U. S. Senate seat is another matter.
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Indeed it can: but whether the argument would carry any weight is another matter entirely.
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Real art is another matter and, despite recent genuflections towards Rembrandt, a rarity becoming rarer.
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Whether I understood them was another matter.
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Whether they will be allowed to evict their unwelcome, unsavoury, tenants, from belfries and elsewhere, is another matter.
foreign body/matter/object
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Make sure you remove all foreign matter from the wound.
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A group of prisoners was carefully picking foreign bodies from a mound of rice before cooking.
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Even for the last remaining superpower, domestic issues, not foreign matters, dominate national elections.
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Eyes inflamed from trauma or after foreign bodies have been removed.
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Lombardy was stopped and arrested on suspicion of rape by force; rape with a foreign object and false imprisonment.
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Nothing but the thrill of seeing your name in print, alongside your gut-wrenching tale of finding foreign objects in your food.
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Tell everyone to watch out for a foreign body?
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The resulting pellets are termed Type 90 reflecting the high percentage of hop material present compared to water and foreign matters.
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We describe two cases of accidental aspiration of a foreign body after use of a metered dose inhaler.
it's (only/just) a matter/question of time
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But they believe it's only a matter of time before the disease crosses the county boundary.
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If he hasn't already killed somebody, then it's only a matter of time .
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They think it's only a matter of time before he breaks.
mind over matter
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But mind over matter, I can do it if I really want to, and I will.
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He says it's just a case of mind over matter.
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There are limits, in other words, to mind over matter.
the fact (of the matter) is
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And the fact is Jimi just turned me on more than anybody else, for his music.
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But the fact is that none of these are visions of what I recognize as life.
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But the fact is that the way we live our lives often assumes a belief about them, one way or another.
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But the fact is, it never should have come to that.
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Doing the sums Knowing the facts is the first priority.
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Let's be realistic, the fact is crime does pay.
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So parent power does work, but the fact is it shouldn't ever have to come to that.
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Yet the fact is that most adolescents are using drugs, and our drug education programs fail to address that reality.
the nub of the problem/matter/argument etc
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Even so, some brain cells were still working, as I stared inwardly at the nub of the problem.
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It sounds perfectly reasonable, but you will perceive that here is the nub of the matter.
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This is the nub of the matter.
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This, however, was the nub of the problem.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
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Does it matter if I bring my own car?
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
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It matters what you wear to an evening of live theater.
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Moreover, the only properties he would allow to matter were ones that could be dealt with by the science of mathematics.
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None of the muddle in her room mattered.
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They both said it didn't matter .
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Welcome to the sorry state of the apology, when regrets seem to come most readily when they matter the least.
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Why did the place matter so much?