noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a fiction/science-fiction/mystery writer
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The movie is based on a story by science-fiction writer Phillip K. Dick.
aura of mystery
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The building retains an aura of mystery .
cloaked in secrecy/mystery
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The talks have been cloaked in secrecy.
mystery play
mystery shopper
mystery tour
shrouded in mystery
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The incident has always been shrouded in mystery .
solve a mystery
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Staff at the library think they have solved the mystery.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
big
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But, surely one of the biggest mysteries is Morse, the man himself.
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Genetics is a big mystery to me.
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It was all a big mystery to me, we were made to wear blue ties, white shirts and blue trousers.
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The effects on astronauts of years in microgravity are the biggest mystery to researchers.
complete
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It is a complete mystery to everyone how the following gems came to light in 1989.
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With the stakes so high, the lack of atmosphere on the terraces in the first half was a complete mystery .
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It's been a complete mystery to me ever since I arrived here.
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When all the evidence is added up, the Sirven case remains a complete mystery .
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How the hell my pack of jokers has managed two wins out of two is a complete mystery .
great
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The craft of writing, the business of publishing, the great mystery of literary success remained to be pursued.
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And this was an edifice that would house the greatest mystery of all: wine into blood, bread into flesh.
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If you leave it out, you are left with a great evolution mystery .
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Even the individual stones can carry great mystery .
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Perhaps one day some one in the know will explain in great detail the mysteries of Blea Moor Tunnel.
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This is something of a mystery - but there is a greater mystery involved.
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Thus the geodynamo remains as one of the great mysteries of the earth.
little
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She liked to keep a little mystery in a relationship where possible.
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A white sloop moved upriver in the dark, a little mystery of grace and stealth.
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He was Sorcerer, after all, and what was love without a little mystery ?
unsolved
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They were part of the Cicero Club, a society which met once a month or so to discuss famous unsolved mysteries .
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This book collects together what I consider to be some of the major unsolved mysteries of science.
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What happened to this piece is still an unsolved mystery .
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For the time being, the Phaistos Disc remains an unsolved mystery .
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To this day Devon Loch's collapse remains one of the Turfs greatest unsolved mysteries .
■ NOUN
man
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In any case, Gillian has invited a mystery man to share the cottage in Witham Friary, Somerset.
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A mystery man usually comes around to drop off a complimentary rose at extraordinary houses.
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But he was apparently talked into selling it by a mystery man for just one pound.
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The mystery man John Huang seems to have worked rather unsuccessfully at the Lippo Bank, whatever that is.
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Last week Mairead was convinced her mystery man was a footballer.
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Actually she was every bit as curious about the saturnine mystery man as Candy.
murder
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Collins creates a gripping picture of slow-moving, small-town life, and packs it into a treat of a murder mystery .
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For those who like solving murder mysteries , however, this is one that will challenge your deductive abilities.
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I kind of chain-read murder mysteries .
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But it turned into a murder mystery anyway.
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So I will go through about five murder mysteries a week - I read really rapidly.
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The way P. D. James sees it, the murder mystery is all about the restoration of order to a disorderly world.
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You can try to work out whether it is autobiography or murder mystery and how it works within these genre classifications.
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The plot for a murder mystery ?
novel
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To be precise, we know that he wrote mystery novels .
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Even before he became William Wilson, Quinn had been a devoted reader of mystery novels .
tour
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The first year was a magical mystery tour .
virus
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The mystery virus , it was thought, would spread into the healthy tree, causing that too to become diseased.
woman
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A mystery woman bombarded Hendry's manager Ian Doyle's Stirling offices with venomous death threats by letter and phone.
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Paula's a bit of a mystery woman .
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Since early September the 23-year-old multi-millionaire had been stalked by a mystery woman threatening to kill the man she once idolised.
■ VERB
deepen
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The fragmentary analysis of nature succeeds only in obscuring the real and deepening the mystery .
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This brief, tantalizing glimpse into his past life served only to deepen the mystery of his background.
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Police told to stay away For many, the killing of municipal police chief Benitez deepens the mystery .
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This deepened the mystery rather than clarifying it.
explain
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I hope you can explain this mystery to me.
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Ahab talks to this head and asks it to explain the mystery of the universe.
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How else could anyone explain your mystery ?
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Such theories contribute nothing to explaining the mystery of perception.
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With only his home-made phrase book to help him, Twoflower was trying to explain the mysteries of inn-sewer-ants to Broadman.
remain
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How much Crédit Lyonnais is owed by Pathe remains a mystery .
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But while the functions and importance of the clock have been clear, exactly how this timekeeper works has remained a mystery .
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This World Heritage Site remains a mystery .
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Beyond that, Weaver remains a mystery .
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Why he did not pay the full amount must remain a mystery .
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The HubbellLippo connection remains a mystery .
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These remain shrouded in mystery also.
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What happened to him may remain a mystery for ever.
solve
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Instead of solving a mystery , she'd discovered another.
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But solving the mystery also teaches some important lessons about the era ahead.
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Then the central character has to be the detective who eventually must solve the mystery .
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Seeing him as almost certainly dead, what we want is to solve his mystery .
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Although I am not yet sure that I have solved the mystery , I have assembled evidence which clarifies what happened.
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He joked to her that he would like to solve the mystery , marry a princess, and inherit the kingdom.
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Unfortunately, Howard Reich, a Chicago music critic, fails to solve the mystery of the pianist's rise and disappearance.
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In the process she solves several mysteries and is reunited with her lover.
surround
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There are many theories but the mystery surrounding Stonehenge is as perpetual as the stones themselves.
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After all, this was by no means the only mystery surrounding Dad: almost nothing about him was straight forward or simple.
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There is some mystery surrounding Theta Eridani, or Acamar.
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The advisory committee report did little to resolve the mystery surrounding Gulf War illness.
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There are all sorts of mysteries surrounding this story.
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Their purchase of an old desk provides Tom with a clue to the mystery surrounding Raybrick's savings.
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The mystery surrounding his death still haunts his family.
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However, the potentially damning disclosures were muddied by the mystery surrounding the man who sent the complaint.
unlock
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For the song of the suffering servant helps unlock the mystery that defies logic.
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If I succeed it will unlock a lot of the mystery of what's been done on Titron.
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Within minutes detectives, a police surgeon and her family arrived to begin the task of unlocking the mystery of her disappearance.
unravel
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When scientists attempt to unravel the mysteries of the past they always run up against a brick wall.
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A prepared statement failed to unravel the mystery .
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It excited her and she promised herself that one day she would unravel the mystery .
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For many years Frederick Delouche felt a particular need to unravel such mysteries .
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
be veiled in mystery/secrecy etc
unlock the secrets/mysteries of sth
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Scientists succeeded in unlocking the secrets to polio's cause.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
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It's a mystery to me how Gayle managed to get here before us.
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No one has ever been able to explain the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle.
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Police are still trying to unravel the mystery of how the prisoner managed to escape.
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Scientists continue to unravel the mysteries of human genes.
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Sue Grafton's mysteries sell very well.
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Ten firemen were in hospital with a mystery illness last night.
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The mystery deepens as more witnesses come forward to tell different stories.
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The writer's identity is a mystery , but he is thought to be Spanish.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
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As for the mystery guest, all I can say is it will be a magician in a box.
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Collins creates a gripping picture of slow-moving, small-town life, and packs it into a treat of a murder mystery .
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Corbett viewed the mystery as a logical problem.
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In the subway one faced the eternal mystery of lust and desire.
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The mystery remains unresolved as twilight turns to total blackness.
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You took the job with him simply to clear up a mystery .