I. NOUN USES AND PHRASES
(~s)
Frequency: The word is one of the 700 most common words in English.
1.
If you talk about a particular ~ of thing, you are talking about one of the types or sorts of that thing.
The party needs a different ~ of leadership...
Had Jamie ever been in any ~ of trouble?...
This book prize is the biggest of its ~ in the world...
= sort, type
N-COUNT: usu N of n
2.
If you refer to someone’s ~, you are referring to all the other people that are like them or that belong to the same class or set.
I can take care of your ~.
= sort, type
N-COUNT: poss N disapproval
3.
You can use all ~s of to emphasize that there are a great number and variety of particular things or people.
Adoption can fail for all ~s of reasons...
PHRASE: PHR n emphasis
4.
You use ~ of when you want to say that something or someone can be roughly described in a particular way. (SPOKEN)
It was ~ of sad, really...
PHRASE: PHR adj/adv/n, PHR before v vagueness
5.
You can use of a ~ to indicate that something is not as good as it might be expected to be, but that it seems to be the best that is possible or available.
She finds solace of a ~ in alcohol.
PHRASE: n PHR
6.
If you refer to someone or something as one of a ~, you mean that there is nobody or nothing else like them.
She’s a very unusual woman, one of a ~.
PHRASE approval
7.
If you refer, for example, to two, three, or four of a ~, you mean two, three, or four similar people or things that seem to go well or belong together.
They were two of a ~, from the same sort of background.
PHRASE
8.
If you respond in ~, you react to something that someone has done to you by doing the same thing to them.
They hurled defiant taunts at the riot police, who responded in ~.
PHRASE: PHR after v
9.
If you pay a debt in ~, you pay it in the form of goods or services and not money.
...benefits in ~.
PHRASE: PHR after v, n PHR
II. ADJECTIVE USES
(~er, ~est)
1.
Someone who is ~ behaves in a gentle, caring, and helpful way towards other people.
I must thank you for being so ~ to me...
It was very ~ of you to come.
ADJ: oft ADJ to n, it v-link ADJ of n to-inf
~ly
‘You seem tired this morning, Jenny,’ she said ~ly.
ADV: ADV after v
2.
You can use ~ in expressions such as please be so ~ as to and would you be ~ enough to in order to ask someone to do something in a firm but polite way.
I wonder if you’d be ~ enough to call him.
ADJ: v-link ADJ politeness
3.
see also ~ly , ~ness