I. noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a bird builds a nest
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By March many birds have already built nests.
a bird nests
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Many birds are nesting on the river banks.
a nesting site
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Normally the male swan won’t let other swans near his nesting site.
crow's nest
love nest
nest egg
▪
They had to use part of their retirement nest egg to pay for their son’s college fees.
stirred up a hornets' nest
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The new production targets have stirred up a hornets' nest .
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
empty
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No one ever told me either that a stepmother could suffer so badly from empty nest syndrome.
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There will be no empty nest , no shedding of familial responsibilities and expense.
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I am swimming away from my friends' deaths, from depression and an empty nest .
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Many women enjoy an empty nest .
little
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She had flattened the grass, burrowed down and made a cosy little nest for herself.
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The dingy flat in Cleghorn Street had been transformed into a cosy little love nest .
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This gives the little nest additional stability and so reduces the risk of it being overturned by a gust of wind.
old
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Naughty lunches usually wholefood take-aways eaten in Tom's friendly old nest of a bed.
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I checked the old abandoned nest .
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It looks like scratchings from an old birds' nest .
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There was the old dirt dauber nest of yesterday.
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Fancy taking you to that tired old love nest .
■ NOUN
box
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Estate managers are beginning to implement their own integrated biological and chemical control programmes by erecting nest boxes .
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Last week, the tree swallow pair abandoned its nest box in the old birch tree in front of my window.
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They've set up nest boxes so its easier to check the population regularly.
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But by the next day they were flying in and out of another nest box nearby on the pole by the fireplace.
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Forty feet away was a nest box fixed to a tree trunk at a height of 8 feet above the ground.
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Faced by these discouragements, all worked hard to reach a nest box .
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Pied-fly numbers have increased dramatically since nest box provision has become widespread practice in the sessile oak woods they prefer.
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Many of the nest boxes nailed to trunks of trees were occupied.
egg
▪
But it is also a good idea to keep a nest egg for emergencies.
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Individuals could invest in stocks and bonds themselves, creating their own retirement nest eggs .
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Royal Liver is also sitting on a large nest egg .
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In the intervening years, as property taxes ate away at their nest egg , their proposals for other developments fell flat.
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Then people with nest eggs in the Branch and most important those with a bit in other institutions.
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When properly managed, they offer the prospect of a tidy retirement nest egg .
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The nest egg grew and grew; improbably, unbelievably, it grew.
love
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The love nest he had conjured out of so little would make up for all her pain.
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That apartment is goddamn love nest , right?
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She tracked his middle-aged mistress to a caravan-site love nest only two miles from her bungalow home.
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Their love nest is the master suite of a glitzy private residence in a new gated Big D community.
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The dingy flat in Cleghorn Street had been transformed into a cosy little love nest .
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Fancy taking you to that tired old love nest .
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Only last week he bought a £550,000 love nest in Henley-on-Thames, Oxon.
site
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Table 2.2 Barn owl samples: nest site versus roost site.
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A colony of ants on the move from one nest site to another exhibits the Kafkaesque underside of emergent control.
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Bone and pellets preserved at an owl's nest site are often exposed to trampling by the owls themselves.
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When she provided groups of four birds with three nest sites between them, these problems were overcome.
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At one nest site a pair displayed excitedly, preparing for a duty change.
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Pellets regurgitated at the nest site may be stepped on and broken up.
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By means of his smart plumage and his simple song, the male tries to attract a female to his nest site .
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Once he has succeeded, the female enters the nest site and starts to build the nest.
■ VERB
build
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The females who were played the reduced repertories turned out to build nests at a lower rate.
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They, too, are getting close to the time when they start to build their nests .
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Birds have an instinct to build nests .
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Little by little the bird builds its nest .
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In a month the indigo bunting will sing and build its nest in the brambles.
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The females build nests , give birth to their blind and hairless young after a gestation of thirty days.
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These birds all sing at intervals, as does the phoebe that has built its nest over my window.
feather
▪
The Bolshoi is full of indolent time-servers, more interested in feathering their nests than in Swan Lake.
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In actual fact what he was doing was feathering his own nest at the expense of the nests of the people.
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So long as they were in favour, they were free to feather their nests , which Andrei did as industriously as anyone else.
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Wetherby may have decided to feather his nest by blackmail.
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But they were all like that, more or less, all interested in feathering their nests at his expense.
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Two of the others, including the chairman, were using their positions to feather their own nests .
find
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The bird, widespread as it is, has resisted the temptation to diverge into numerous kinds found among many nest parasites.
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After moving from one room to another for more than a year, I had finally found a cozy nest .
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As a result, a cuckoo who was himself brought up by warblers may father an egg found in a redstart nest .
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So I stayed and watched to find the nest .
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Pigeons: Railway stations, buildings and ledges are where you might find a pigeon's nest .
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Any thought I may have had about finding the nest for Crispin's camera left me then.
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The first problem that faces the cuckoo is to find a nest belonging to the right species of host.
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A single mole carcase was found in the nest , but otherwise the small mammal remains were all found inside the pellets.
fly
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The cuckoo had to fly to a new nest , or perish.
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Second, it must fly swiftly away from the nest and alight some distance from it.
leave
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Barn owls leave the nest at two to three months and are sexually mature at one year.
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But after the kids left , the nest was too large.
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Young, thickly covered in down, leave nest soon after hatching.
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After about three weeks, the young cuckoo is ready to leave the nest .
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It went silently, dodging and hiding; it must have left its nest at my approach.
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Once deposited, she leaves the nest and he immediately fertilizes the eggs.
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It is so rarely when all the fledglings have left the nest , to have them all together again.
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When the host leaves the nest , the cuckoo makes its approach in a long, silent hawk-like glide.
make
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She will make her nest in the sleeping quarters of the hutch where she will eventually have her litter.
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After a while Clarisa came back in with her bag and made a nest for herself on the couch.
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But between them, he told himself, they had made this nest comfortable.
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The hens made their nests in the barn or wherever else they could, and you searched for the eggs as necessary.
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Anyway, it didn't seem to concern her - she would simply make another nest and lay some more.
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Then she makes her nest , carrying mouthfuls of bedding to the chosen spot before rooting and pawing it into shape.
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Wasps also make nests filled with combs of hexagonal cells, but they build not with wax but with paper.
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Birds like making their nests there because it's so quiet and safe.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
empty nest
▪
I am swimming away from my friends' deaths, from depression and an empty nest.
▪
Many women enjoy an empty nest.
▪
No one ever told me either that a stepmother could suffer so badly from empty nest syndrome.
▪
There will be no empty nest, no shedding of familial responsibilities and expense.
feather your nest
▪
But they were all like that, more or less, all interested in feathering their nests at his expense.
▪
So long as they were in favour, they were free to feather their nests, which Andrei did as industriously as anyone else.
▪
The Bolshoi is full of indolent time-servers, more interested in feathering their nests than in Swan Lake.
▪
Wetherby may have decided to feather his nest by blackmail.
fly the nest
hornets' nest
mare's nest
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪
About as pleasant to come across as a nest of vipers.
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For as long as they had known each other it had been their nest , their retreat, their beautiful private world.
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I checked the old abandoned nest .
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Individuals could invest in stocks and bonds themselves, creating their own retirement nest eggs.
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Several butterfly species live out their caterpillar stage inside an ants' nest .
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The female sits inside the nest while the male goes off collecting nest material.
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Then ants would crawl through the cracks in the floor and build a big nest in the middle of the bedroom.
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Villages are unspoilt, usually built around a medieval church with a stork's nest on top.
II. verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
bird
▪
If you approach a pond where these birds are nesting , they will all come swimming up to the bank nearest to you.
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The bird has its nesting place, but Imy young are dispersed.
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The rectory was a dour red brick house with ivy-clad walls where birds would soon be nesting .
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As the riders passed they called out: high-pitched cries which startled the birds that nested in the tree-tops.
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Staff at slimbridge were delighted when the birds decided to nest .
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Rusting wire-netting lined its upper surface, presumably to prevent birds from nesting there.
cliff
▪
Vultures nested in the cliffs and circled in slow spirals above the camp.
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Not a waterside bird, frequenting dry country and nesting on rocky cliffs and stream banks, sometimes on ruined buildings.
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House Martins have been recorded nesting on the cliffs occasionally.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
empty nest
▪
I am swimming away from my friends' deaths, from depression and an empty nest.
▪
Many women enjoy an empty nest.
▪
No one ever told me either that a stepmother could suffer so badly from empty nest syndrome.
▪
There will be no empty nest, no shedding of familial responsibilities and expense.
hornets' nest
mare's nest
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪
The birds stop briefly to nest and feed.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
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Cactus wrens and Inca doves nest in thick tangles of mesquite.
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I wondered if the kingfisher still nested in the sandy banks there.
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In summer petrels nest in crevices in the rocks, and colonies of penguins breed on nearby islands.
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Such strong-winged birds as pigeons and hawks stray north in considerable variety, and some of these remain to nest .
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The rectory was a dour red brick house with ivy-clad walls where birds would soon be nesting.
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The starlings have gone to nest in the hot-air ducts of a concrete and glass mountain in the city centre.
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There is no evidence that this species has ever nested in Sussex.