(~s)
Frequency: The word is one of the 1500 most common words in English.
1.
You use ~ when referring to something that existed at the beginning of a process or activity, or the characteristics that something had when it began or was made.
The inhabitants have voted overwhelmingly to restore the city’s ~ name of Chemnitz.
ADJ: det ADJ
2.
If something such as a document, a work of art, or a piece of writing is an ~, it is not a copy or a later version.
When you have filled in the questionnaire, copy it and send the ~ to your employer...
For once the sequel is as good as the ~.
N-COUNT
3.
An ~ document or work of art is not a copy.
...an ~ movie poster.
ADJ: usu ADJ n
4.
An ~ piece of writing or music was written recently and has not been published or performed before.
...its policy of commissioning ~ work.
...with catchy ~ songs by Richard Warner.
ADJ: usu ADJ n
5.
If you describe someone or their work as ~, you mean that they are very imaginative and have new ideas.
It is one of the most ~ works of imagination in the language.
...an ~ writer.
= innovative
ADJ approval
~ity
He was capable of writing things of startling ~ity.
N-UNCOUNT
6.
If you read or sing something in the ~ or, for example, in the ~ French, you read or sing it in the language it was written in, rather than a translation.
He read every book or author it deals with, often in the ~...
The texts were sung in the ~ Italian.
PHRASE: PHR after v