I. noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a dust storm (= one in which a lot of dust is blown around )
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Dust storms are relatively common in the Sahara.
collecting dust
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I didn’t know what to do with it, so it just sat there collecting dust .
dust bowl
dust bunny
dust cart
dust cover
dust jacket
dust storm
gold dust
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Cup final tickets are like gold dust.
pall of smoke/dust/ash etc
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A pall of thick grey smoke hung over the buildings.
plume of smoke/dust/gas/spray etc
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A black plume of smoke rose above the city.
thick with dust (= there was thick dust on the furniture )
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The furniture was thick with dust .
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
black
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It went to dust , black dust, very sandy.
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Wilson had grown up black with coal dust .
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Mix this black dust with oil and eat it.
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The rest is covered by an extremely black dust deposit.
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The soil where the bombs fell had been pulverised into black dust that had settled on everything.
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Fine black dust began to fall, slowly, gently, suspended and swirled by the breeze.
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He was kneeling before the fire, his hands and face black with coal dust .
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On 15 April 1984 the black dust began blowing off the tailings lake.
fine
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A fine trail of dust dislodged from the door frame and drifted slowly to the ground.
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A fine layer of dust rests on everything.
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The grains most easily mobilized are small but not as fine as dust .
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She could even see it in this thing, the pallor of it, the fine dust of jet black fur.
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They left, a cloud of fine dust rising behind them.
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The place is apparently being slowly abraded by a fine , stinging dust blown across Patagonia by the unceasing gales.
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There was a layer of fine dust: Your feet sank into 3 inches of fine powder, and it was everywhere.
gathering
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Meanwhile goods collected by the Worcester Kurdish Refugee Association are gathering dust in a warehouse.
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Others were gathering dust by New Year and forgotten by February.
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By the autumn of 1975 around 11 percent of fixed capital was gathering dust .
gold
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Freckles and red hair are gold dust .
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I found myself thinking, Sunny side of the street. Gold dust at my feet.
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But any information from behind the Iron Curtain was treated like gold dust in those days.
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A single animal may be dissected down to organs and tissues, and then parceled out like gold dust to waiting biologists.
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This, honey, is gold dust .
radioactive
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In the uranium mines, workers breathe in radioactive dust as they dig out the metal ore which contains the valuable element.
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As the fire shed its microscopic radioactive dust over their houses and gardens, they continued to walk about, blissfully unaware.
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How much radioactive dust is in my body?
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The humans are slowly dying because of the radioactive dust caused by a human war.
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Officials have still to decide how the radioactive dust and nuclear fuel inside should be cleaned up.
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The doctors there know all about uranium and radioactive dust .
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A Department of Environment spokesman said that 1 gram of radioactive dust had been released.
red
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I ran after him, stumbling in the red dust .
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During the dry season, our tracks would just tear up the clay and create a cloud of red dust .
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His handprints were still in the red dust on the dashboard months later.
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As the first ships flared, red dust billowed up and swallowed them completely.
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He kept picturing an old man with a hoe, how the poor guy went skidding through the powdery red dust .
thick
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The room was festooned with cobwebs, the air musty and thick with dust and disuse.
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Would not these storms coat solar collectors and solar-cell panels with a thick layer of dust , shutting them down?
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More Nassauer infantry were running down the road, their heavy boots stirring a thick dust .
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She could see nothing through the thick clouds of dust that choked her.
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The air is thick with dust , accumulated over years of not-remembering, years of not wanting to know.
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They were thick with dust , Anna said, but they too would never be removed.
white
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These, she noticed, were covered by white dust sheets.
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The wine bottle had a white sheen of dust along one side, the wineglasses were wet from rinsing.
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A few remaining palm trees clad in white coral dust looked ghostly in the moonlight.
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Every now and then a car rumbled over the bumpy dirt road, leaving behind a whirl of white dust .
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The white dust often found on the casing of salami is bacterial and usually contributes to the flavour of the sausage.
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Every day a new width of mud showed on each side, and by afternoon the mud had baked into white dust .
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Durkin was dressed for motoring in a long white dust coat and cap.
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Rory spat bits out of his mouth, blinked the white dust out of his eyes.
■ NOUN
brick
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The House also distinguished McGhee, as in that case the plaintiff's injury was caused by the brick dust .
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It meant brick dust and disorder.
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The soil is the colour of brick dust , with only deep dry gullies to show that water ever flowed here.
chalk
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He looked down at his fingers and noted the chalk dust on their tips.
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There were the eternal school smells of chalk dust , wax crayons, cedar shavings, damp wool, and warm children.
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Now those slight differences of electrical potential had disappeared, like the chalk dust at the end of the lesson.
cloud
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At the edge of the plain a new dust cloud hovered.
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Although park emergency systems were mobilized immediately, the dust cloud prevented an immediate search, then darkness made it impossible.
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The dust cloud was closer now: about half a verst away.
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The dust cloud begins to smear out along the orbit of the comet.
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This was followed last year by the announcement that diamonds have been found in dust clouds surrounding forming stars.
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From the watchtowers a dust cloud is spied on the horizon.
coal
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The blast, 610m below ground, is thought to have been caused by a mix of coal dust and methane gas.
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Jeff even carried out trial runs using rockets stuffed with coal dust .
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Wilson had grown up black with coal dust .
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Campaigners claim deposits of coal dust released into the atmosphere are a health hazard and a nuisance.
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His face was still covered in coal dust and he looked anything but a gent.
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For some of the women, selling the coal dust provides their only income to feed their families.
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A lever lid tin was used to heat coal dust , using a spirit burner.
particle
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It was a broken hulk, millennia of dust particles covering the displays and floors.
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I could see the tiny dust particles in front of my eyes.
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It occurs when dust particles high in the atmosphere filter out most of the longer wavelengths of red light.
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She also seemed very sensitive to the sunlight and the dust particles streaming into my office.
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The bomb blast fractured the ventilating system and spewed dust particles along the system throughout the hospital.
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About 30% of the Sun's energy hitting the Earth is reflected back into space by dust particles and cloud.
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The dust particles might be better at catching the wind, like fluff on a willow seed.
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Swirling dust particles caused him to sneeze and he looked down at the old books and papers with watery eyes.
■ VERB
blow
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Some one should dig it out from the carpet under which it was brushed and blow the dust off it.
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The wind began to blow , grass and dust whipping ahead of them as though fleeing the black cloud.
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Kobborg and Cojocaru blow away the dust .
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The crowd thinning around them, the wind that blew dust and papers past could not interrupt their looking at each other.
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The hot wind blows a storm of dust and leaves, and the women retreat into their houses.
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Between the moon and my see-through roof a purple storm was blowing the dust of some previous war into the waste spaces.
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The clay dries and cracks in the sun, and the top layers are blown off as dust .
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Otherwise blow out dust from the keyboard and clean keyboard casing. 5.
brush
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She brushed dust off the toe.
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She stopped for a moment to brush the dust from her hands and clothes and set off back to the house.
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He brushed a speck of dust from his sleeve as he waited for the silence he required.
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He brushed dust from his sleeve and headed towards the flight of stone steps that led up to the embankment.
choke
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The pores were choked with dust , and the tiles were yellow with age.
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Balfour slammed his canary-yellow, industrial vacuum truck into gear and roared after the varmint in a cloud of choking brown dust .
collect
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Now I occupy space in your lounge collecting dust .
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But I found it collected dust in a corner.
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Dried and etched surfaces should be peeled immediately, as they collect dust rapidly.
gather
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Excitement fades to disillusionment, and so another piece of technology goes to gather dust on a storeroom shelf.
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Its conclusions were left to gather dust with all the commission reports and suggestions accumulated over the past thirty years.
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Each one looked as if it was consulted too often to gather dust .
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The Macintosh factory kept churning out gorgeous boxes that gathered dust in dealerships.
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In the home of Hildebrand, gathering dust , lay a long, padded box containing a golden rod entwined with roses.
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My early 1980s collection, which had fast been gathering dust up in the loft, was now woefully lacking.
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The best way to stop it completely is to leave it gathering dust in any store that stocks it.
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This results in goods gathering dust and discrepancies occur.
raise
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Some people back there would be cursing us for raising so much dust .
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He swept towards me, like the wind raising a storm as soaring eagles raise dust .
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As this strong shock wave races outward from the impact site, it raises a storm of dust .
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The surface winds are fairly light, but from time to time can raise dust .
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These of course raise little or no dust unless the impactor reaches the ocean floor before detonating.
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They will not excavate a crater, and therefore raise far less dust than surface bursts with the same yield.
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These surface bursts raise vast amounts of dust .
remove
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Carefully remove from tin and dust with icing sugar and cocoa.
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Ventilation ducts are cleaned to remove dust and debris, birds and insects.
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Remove covers and remove dust , particularly ensuring the area os the fan is clean and unimpeded. 2.
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Dry the seeds in a cool, airy place and remove chaff, dust or dirt.
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The men breathe air that is filtered to remove any radioactive dust , nerve gases or biological toxins.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
be like gold dust
bite the dust
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Half of all new restaurants bite the dust in the first year.
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My old car's finally bitten the dust.
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Another good restaurant bites the dust -- end of story, right?
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So what are you going to do, now that your favourite C64 action mag has bitten the dust?
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The finale of Unforgiven is as much a tragedy for the survivors as for those who bite the dust.
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They bite the dust with lead in their bellies.
done and dusted
gather dust
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Some of the new equipment is just gathering dust because the staff have not been trained to use it.
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The biggest disadvantage to having silk flowers is that they gather dust.
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The plans lie gathering dust in some government office.
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We sold our piano because it was just gathering dust.
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Beck had no intention of letting his report gather dust on the legislative shelves.
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Each one looked as if it was consulted too often to gather dust.
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Excitement fades to disillusionment, and so another piece of technology goes to gather dust on a storeroom shelf.
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In the home of Hildebrand, gathering dust, lay a long, padded box containing a golden rod entwined with roses.
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Its conclusions were left to gather dust with all the commission reports and suggestions accumulated over the past thirty years.
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Millions of these books are shredded yearly or allowed to rot and gather dust in purgatorial existence.
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The Macintosh factory kept churning out gorgeous boxes that gathered dust in dealerships.
not see sb for dust
pillar of dust/smoke/flame etc
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The incinerator became a roaring pillar of flame, its iron bars instantly glowing red hot.
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There was a pillar of smoke then, too.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
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a thick layer of dust on the furniture
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Max brushed the dust off his coat.
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There was a thick layer of dust on the furniture.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
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And thus the work went on, and many a Federal and Confederate bit the dust .
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Get some tinsel and some glitter dust if you can.
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In the morning I woke up and turned over; a big cloud of dust rose from the mattress.
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It is easy enough to imagine brushing away a meter or so of dry dust covering an ice deposit.
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Knowing also his hinted promise was likely to be so much dust .
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The wine bottle had a white sheen of dust along one side, the wineglasses were wet from rinsing.
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We don't know whether the dust is toxic.
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When the dust settles, we are the enforcers, the last line of law.
II. verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
down
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This was my case, dusted down from Granny's attic when they were taking me away from the farm.
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Mr Eames and Bill and Thomas collected trays and glasses, decanters were dusted down , all variety of bottles were sought.
off
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I slipped it into my pocket and dusted off my hands and clothes.
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If necessary, dust off the window and sill with a clean paintbrush.
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So I settled for dusting off his shoulder and giving it a quick squeeze.
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Tuesday, a bit more of that old hostility was dusted off .
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Each is dusting off schemes for supporting innovative industry.
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In the spring of 1978, it was dusted off for a more compelling reason, namely domestic politics.
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Travis dropped his load and dusted off his hands.
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She stood up, dusting off her hands and stood before Patrick.
■ NOUN
snow
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A few thousand acres have already gone out of production-you can see the salt on the ground like a dusting of snow .
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And the others came forward to dust the snow off Billy, and then they searched him for weapons.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
be like gold dust
done and dusted
pillar of dust/smoke/flame etc
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The incinerator became a roaring pillar of flame, its iron bars instantly glowing red hot.
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There was a pillar of smoke then, too.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
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Dust the top of the cake with cinnamon.
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A maid dusted the furniture.
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A thorough cleaning includes dusting under the wardrobes.
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She decided to dust the dining room furniture again.
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She didn't often dust behind the pictures.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
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Fussily, the embalmer dusted the remains of the salt from her body.
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He clambered down, dusted himself off.
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Then he straightened and dusted invisible grains of dirt from the knees of his coveralls.
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We dusted each other down and then it was time to walk home.