noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
absolute
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For they know with absolute certainty that one day it will come.
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There was absolute certainty in his voice.
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The threat to truth as the goal of science is not just a threat to absolute certainty .
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They were up against the absolute certainty of guilt expressed by all the parties weighed against them.
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That is, the position of a particle could not be defined with absolute certainty , but only by statistical probability.
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He had to have absolute certainty .
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An absolute certainty that no-one wishes you harm.
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I did not know what I wanted to be but knew with absolute certainty what I did not want to be.
complete
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This notion is based on the assumption of a perfect financial market, with perfect knowledge and complete certainty about the future.
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That there will at some unknown point in the future be such a crisis is a complete certainty .
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It may be said at once that these questions can not be answered with complete certainty .
great
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A fixed-price offer gives issuers greater certainty and intermediaries lower fees.
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Within those areas covered by the rational basis part of the test there would be greater certainty .
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Facilities such as these will allow the engineer to possibly gain deeper systems understanding and through this obtain greater diagnostic certainty .
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The system encourages good government-the difficulty of reversing a commitment can mean a greater certainty and clarity about trading conditions.
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Creggan suddenly felt strength and great certainty .
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Where human life is at stake, a much greater degree of certainty is required.
high
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It offers both traders and customers a high level of certainty as to exactly what is on offer.
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A high degree of certainty permits a high structure.
mathematical
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We can possess a mathematical certainty that two and two make four, but this rarely matters to us.
moral
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What is most striking, however, is the way the play keeps subverting our moral certainties .
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He has equipped him, too, with a moral certainty which the Rat recognises and envies.
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Yet the political and moral certainties of the old polarities have dissolved.
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Their telling and retelling relay important principles of hope rooted in political and moral certainties about the outcome of struggle.
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An almost frightening moral certainty swept over it and began to soothe its pain.
old
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As a stake in society comes in at a higher cost, the old certainties begin to wither.
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No matter how partners parent, children introduce the kind of emotional strain that can shatter old harmonies and certainties .
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The experience of New Labour in office has dented old certainties .
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All that is certain is that the old certainty no longer exists.
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The old clear-cut certainties dissolved into an indeterminate haze.
only
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The only certainty was that she had a few seconds to act.
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As we approach the millennium the only certainty is change, and lots of it.
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But whatever happens, the only certainty is that the crags will never change.
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The only certainty in this airline shake-out is that, ultimately, it is going to cost the traveller a lot.
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We all know that, however much we may try to deter it, death is the only certainty .
reasonable
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Other individual fluctuations can be assigned to specific causes with reasonable certainty .
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This would allow a pollution sample to be matched with reasonable certainty to its source.
virtual
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It can already be said with virtual certainty that lamb will never be as cheap again.
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Raymond Burns and the vastly experienced Garth McGimpsey must be considered virtual certainties .
■ VERB
establish
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When the basic concepts have been established the assumption of certainty will be removed.
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This diagnosis can be established with certainty only by testing the cerebrospinal fluid.
feel
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Had felt the overpowering certainty of the man behind the words and, again, recognised the echo in himself.
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I remember that I felt astonished at her certainty .
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She felt , with a certainty she couldn't explain, that he had called her here, and for some purpose.
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He felt the certainty of it.
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One by one, she felt her certainties crumble to dust.
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He felt it was a certainty .
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In the warm sunlight, I feel with certainty that my world is expanding and my mind with it.
know
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First, it entails defining the site's boundaries beforehand, and these are not always known with certainty .
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They needed to know , with enough certainty to avoid embarrassment, inconvenience, and lawsuits when the building was completed.
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He knew it for a certainty .
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For they know with absolute certainty that one day it will come.
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In contrast, the future spot price can not be known with certainty precisely because it is a future price.
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Is there anything that we can really know with certainty ?
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But she knew with bleak certainty that, once she'd left it, she would never, ever come back.
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He was not saying merely that you believed it, but that you could know it as certainty !
predict
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In many cases it may be impossible to predict with certainty whether or not a particular clause will be effective.
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It is therefore impossible to predict with certainty what amount of supplementation will result in what increment in the serum phosphate concentration.
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Very little has been discovered of the gates, although their sites can be predicted with tolerable certainty .
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One would like the additional information to be conclusive so that the success or failure of the project could be predicted with certainty .
said
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It can already be said with virtual certainty that lamb will never be as cheap again.
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The one thing that can be said with certainty about mildew is that it is unpredictable.
seem
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It has seemed a certainty to me from the beginning; the decision of the Council is tomorrow.
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In Barcelona, gold seemed a certainty .
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Tragically, it seems a deadly certainty that the region will dissolve into war.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
mathematical certainty
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We can possess a mathematical certainty that two and two make four, but this rarely matters to us.
practical certainty/disaster/sell-out etc
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It was a practical certainty that he would be trying to raise more loans long before these were ever repaid.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
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Further job cutbacks are a certainty .
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
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It is also wiser not to treat every offer as an 18-carat-gold certainty .
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On the other hand, we can never possess such a certainty that some one loves us.
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Patrick Gabriel had brought corruption, disturbing order, shaking the certainties that Quex needed.
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The theological certainties he found in others intrigued, but never convinced Eyre.
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This diagnosis can be established with certainty only by testing the cerebrospinal fluid.