(~s)
Frequency: The word is one of the 3000 most common words in English.
Note: In addition to the uses shown below, '~' is used in phrasal verbs such as ‘cast ~’, ‘stand ~’, and ‘step ~’.
1.
If you move something ~, you move it to one side of you.
Sarah closed the book and laid it ~.
ADV: ADV after v
2.
If you take or draw someone ~, you take them a little way away from a group of people in order to talk to them in private.
Will put his arm around her shoulders and drew her ~.
ADV: ADV after v
3.
If you move ~, you get out of someone’s way.
She had been standing in the doorway, but now she stepped ~ to let them pass.
ADV: ADV after v
4.
If you set something such as time, money, or space ~ for a particular purpose, you save it and do not use it for anything else.
She wants to put her pocket-money ~ for holidays.
...the ground set ~ for the new cathedral.
ADV: ADV after v
5.
If you brush or sweep ~ a feeling or suggestion, you reject it.
Talk to a friend who will really listen and not brush ~ your feelings...
The Prime Minister swept ~ concern about the rising cost of mortgages.
ADV: ADV after v
6.
You use ~ to indicate that you have finished talking about something, or that you are leaving it out of your discussion, and that you are about to talk about something else.
Leaving ~ the tiny minority who are clinically depressed, most people who have bad moods also have very good moods...
Emotional arguments ~, here are the facts.
= apart
ADV: ADV after v, n ADV
7.
An ~ is a comment that a character in a play makes to the audience, which the other characters are supposed not to be able to hear.
Exasperated with her children, she rolls her eyes and mutters an ~ to the camera, ‘No wonder I drink!’.
N-COUNT
8.
An ~ is something that you say that is not directly connected with what you are talking about.
The pace of the book is leisurely, with enjoyable literary and historical ~s.
= digression
N-COUNT