I. noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a relative/comparative lack of sth
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There is a relative lack of research into this medical condition.
relative calm
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The last five years have seen a period of relative calm .
relative clause
relative frequency
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The relative frequency of fraternal twins has halved since 1950.
relative importance
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We discussed the relative importance of these different sources of revenue.
relative poverty (= when someone is poor compared with someone else )
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the relative poverty of the southern states
relative pronoun
relative/comparative obscurity (= not known about compared to other things that are better known )
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He brought the team from relative obscurity to fame.
relative/reasonable harmony (= quite friendly and peaceful when compared to something else )
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The tribes have lived together in relative harmony for years.
the relative/comparative merits of sth (= the good qualities of something as compared to something else )
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She is an expert in the relative merits of spa waters.
with comparative/relative ease (= seeming easy, especially considering how difficult something is )
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Most modern laptops can store large amounts of data with comparative ease.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
close
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Human beings, being observant and intelligent, spot the consequences of matings between close relatives and make safety laws about them.
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Even our closest relatives , the chimpanzees, are guilty.
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Until recently was more or less confined to his home having no close relatives or transport.
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All of its close relatives except one make the whine but not the chuck.
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Overinvolvement by close relatives seems to be implicated in relapse of an established schizophrenic illness.
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We let grandparents and other close relatives and friends enter and touch the infant, if the parents wish.
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Monkey business A legal case in Los Angeles County may have far-reaching implications for the rights of our closest non-human relatives .
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Another 25 percent of abusers were close family relatives such as brothers, uncles and grandfathers.
distant
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Shrimps are distant relatives of insects.
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No-one was able to locate even a distant relative .
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I even had some distant relatives living here, of the sort that are called cousins, seven times removed.
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Two brothers of wife Gail Spiro and a distant relative of her husband arrived in San Diego yesterday.
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Multiplayer games are also available, allowing viewers to compete against distant friends or relatives on the network.
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All four looked white different, yet slightly the same, like distant relatives with an underlying family resemblance.
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Two letters that might have been written to a distant relative , and that was all.
elderly
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He says he's angry, everyone has elderly relatives .
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Active adults had to take care of both their elderly relatives and their children.
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When families place elderly relatives into residential care, a similar feeling of guilt is often apparent.
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People are becoming increasingly faced with having some responsibility for the care of their elderly parents or relatives .
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Project 2: The impact of elderly relatives in the household.
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They always had to share with other people, our elderly relatives .
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Mary had been looked after by a nanny until the age of seven and had then stayed intermittently with elderly relatives .
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Home responsibilities protection Many women spend some years away from paid employment bringing up children or looking after elderly or disabled relatives .
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
close relation/relative
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All of its close relatives except one make the whine but not the chuck.
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Because the government abandoned any formal incomes policy there was less call for it to maintain close relations with union leaders.
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Because, they argued, the males in coalitions were almost always close relatives, kin selection enhanced the benefits of cooperation.
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But they are thinking about commercial applications for the chanterelle and its close relative, the Tricholoma matsutake.
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Financial need, even on the part of a close relative, has apparently never been seen as a situation which required an automatic response.
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It may also be powerful between close relatives where one may be in a dominant position vis-à-vis the other.
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The people who had saved my life were my close relations!
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We let grandparents and other close relatives and friends enter and touch the infant, if the parents wish.
near relative/relation
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Again, applications may be made by the nearest relative or an approved social worker and two medical recommendations are required.
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Also, as Sheila Silcock's article highlights, the nearest relative may be unaware of their rights under the Act.
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As the nearest relative, I have found the care team bound by rules of confidentiality which limit communication.
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Further protostome diversification led to a plexus of annelids, molluscs and near relatives.
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In 1357 he is required by statute to entrust the administration of the property to the near relations of the deceased.
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Specially trained staff interviewed the parents or the nearest relative of any study child who died.
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The informant was expected usually to be the person's nearest relative. 3.
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The three woodpeckers are different from their nearest relatives in Java and Borneo.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
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Are your relatives from Denmark coming to the wedding?
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
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Because, they argued, the males in coalitions were almost always close relatives, kin selection enhanced the benefits of cooperation.
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Family Eldercare also helps out-of-state employees with concerns about aging relatives who live in Austin.
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Legalization also appears to have strengthened relationships between amnesty recipients and their relatives living abroad.
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She is socially dependent on friends and relatives.
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Shrimps are distant relatives of insects.
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The women were to spend the night at a community youth center in Tokyo before meeting their relatives today.
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Their graves were tended by surviving relatives in much the same way that they looked after the house of an absent friend.
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Within the family, meanwhile, money-making is reinforced as admirable through stories featuring relatives as the heroes.
II. adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
abundance
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Such isoforms and their relative abundance could mediate specific cell type or matrix interactions.
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The relative abundance of these elements is increasingly being used to trace chemical processes in the mantle, crust, and oceans.
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Every year particular species arrive and disappear, and change in absolute and relative abundance .
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The relative abundance records the percentage of the total population represented by each species.
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Finally, we should comment on the relative abundance of ozone and hydrogen peroxide at Cape Grim.
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Unhappily, habits which may have had some virtue in times of scarcity became vices in times of relative abundance .
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Provided this is taken into account, the differences between comparable samples are as readily discernible as when relative abundance is used.
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Temporal variations of solid concentrations at that level indicate the relative abundance of particles whose diameters may be calculated.
advantage
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List the different methods by which this modification value could be specified, and discuss their relative advantages and disadvantages. 3.12.
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I am convinced, however, that this represents at most a relative advantage .
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Given such variety, it is difficult to discuss the relative advantages of the different respiratory pigments.
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What are the relative advantages and disadvantages in questionnaire construction of closed and open questions? 7.
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Each has their relative advantages and disadvantages.
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It is quite possible to discriminate in their favour by allowing their relative advantages to play a greater role.
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One neutral viewpoint is to consider formally the relative advantages and limitations of men and machines.
amount
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The relative amounts of reactants and products, measured in moles, are indicated by the coefficients in the balanced equation.
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Column 4 indicates the absolute and relative amounts of employment provided by each industry.
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The identity, size, shape and relative amount of the inclusions help to characterise the clays.
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Of equal importance are the relative amounts of assimilation and accommodation that take place.
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They are also classified as felsic or mafic, depending on the kinds and relative amounts of light and dark minerals.
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By eating meals in which the relative amounts of protein, fat and carbohydrates are strictly set, he writes.
calm
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Our path dropped down to the relative calm of the sea shore, edging craggy inlets beneath overhanging cliff tops.
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The relative calm before this convention is almost eerie.
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Yet by comparison with the fate of most people in Caxias, this is a haven of relative calm and well-being.
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But as the period of relative calm continued, it seemed to last an eternity.
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The scent-sensitive Lepidoptera are thus associated with the strongly-scented flowers in the relative calm there.
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The history of many colleges can be seen as periods of conflict and confrontation alternating with periods of consolidation and relative calm .
clause
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The most notable is the relative pronoun that, which can only be used with a restrictive relative clause .
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A relative clause counts as dependent whereas an adjective modifying a noun clearly does not.
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Moreover, as we have remarked, many relative clauses with adjectives will not give postnominal adjectives.
costs
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A second form of state intervention to promote rural industrialization is the use of direct subsidies to change manufacturers' relative costs .
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There should be new types of pavement design and extra research into the relative costs of concrete and bitumen roads.
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The relative costs are listed in Table 3.2.
decline
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But relative decline is used as an indicator by some; and output can be used as a measure rather than employment.
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This label reflects the apparent concentration of power in executives and the relative decline of legislatures' powers.
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An empirical test of the relative decline of legislative power is especially difficult.
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A decline in the national importance of industry must also, however, induce relative decline in industrial regions.
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Using published sources, a region in relative decline will be contrasted with a relatively expanding region in each country.
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That would only hasten the rich countries' relative decline .
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Although there are bright spots, the general picture is one of relative decline in relation to other advanced democracies.
ease
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It provides the breadth and depth of financial resources required to enable banks to adjust their liquidity positions with relative ease .
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Do you really want to give up the relative ease of having a whole accounting department at your beck and call?
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We are able to explain and understand completely new ideas with relative ease .
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Why not just stick with egg rolls and pot stickers, which most kitchens can handle with relative ease ?
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It includes assets which could be converted with relative ease and without capital loss into spending on goods and services.
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Such schemes as this will offer the possibility for speed with flexibility and relative ease of use.
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Whilst most user groups can be identified with relative ease , the various types of material or service often resist clear definition.
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C., where she lived a life of relative ease and privilege.
lack
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This may be related to a relative lack of social stability: being more frequently single and in less permanent accommodation.
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The relative lack of input from Texas means a relative lack of interest from the candidates.
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Proof of this may be demonstrated by the relative lack of pleasure when smoking a cigarette with one's eyes shut.
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The relative lack of input from Texas means a relative lack of interest from the candidates.
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These factors may have contributed markedly to the relative lack of success of the minor marriages.
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From this position there is a relative lack of regard for the Symbolic order.
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The lesson, the drama, the learning all appear to be at risk because of the relative lack of structure.
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They say they consider him uncorrupted, and are impressed by his relative lack of political ambition.
merits
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First, we will need to consider the relative merits of selling the assets of the business as opposed to the shares.
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He lost all perspective on the relative merits of the jobs.
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In private, however, all are making judgements about the relative merits of each of the authorities.
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Within weeks after our arrival the managers of each department had begun to debate our relative merits .
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The relative merits of free, natural and controlled language need to be evaluated.
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Worse yet, they provide lots of ambiguity and material for debate on the relative merits of centralization and decentralization.
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The relative merits of both approaches have to be considered when opting for a solution to a particular diagnostic problem.
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There is some debate as to the relative merits of homoeopathy and herbalism.
newcomer
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A relative newcomer to the news control booth is the remote coordinator.
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The detractors say they are relative newcomers who would have constituted a gamble.
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A relative newcomer to Wallingford, starting seven years ago.
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But having lived in a Louisiana prison for five years, he is a relative newcomer .
obscurity
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Marinello's was played out in relative obscurity .
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This nondescript little gem across from Arizona Stadium has been languishing in relative obscurity for the last two years.
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Like anyone who has lived most of his life in relative obscurity , Payne remains uncomfortable with public scrutiny.
poverty
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Or they can decide that the main problem is that relative poverty got no better during the prosperous 1980s.
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You only attain new levels of relative poverty .
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But they are aware of their relative poverty .
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Nevertheless, a majority of Goyigamas, in common with the rest of the population, lived in relative poverty .
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In the first few days, too, I was made to realize my relative poverty .
safety
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The fry drift with the current to the relative safety of plant growths.
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They also had to let go of the relative safety of conducting such discussions privately.
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Many flee rural areas for the relative safety of the cities, particularly Bogota.
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Every time it seems hopeless, the trail switches back and the climb proceeds in relative safety .
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They have all you could need to test your mountain skills in relative safety .
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I have difficulty believing we can climb it in relative safety without ropes and gear.
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Henry then withdrew to the relative safety of Richard's stronghold at Aixe.
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They carried the little family with them to relative safety .
stability
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This is partly true-which explains the relative stability the Czech Republic enjoyed in the first half of the 1990s.
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The overwhelming reasons cited were the economic progress and develop-ment under his regime, and its relative stability .
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Both latter categories suggest the relative stability of the York economy in 1899.
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The decline of the relative stability and growth of world capitalism that marked the 1950s and the early 1960s.
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The country's relative stability has tempted some people to return from overseas.
value
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Also, there is a need on the part of decision makers to assess the relative value for money from competing health care interventions.
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Economists assign value to resources based on their relative value in the production process, Preston says.
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Although this applies to stratified societies as a class the relative values attached to particular substances varied in space and time.
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Preparatory schools in Oxford, their relative value for money.
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Decision makers need to assess the relative value for money of competing health care interventions.
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What are the relative values of a lump sum investment or a pension?
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
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Farr escaped to the relative quiet of his room.
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It's all relative , isn't it? Someone who is poor in this country might be considered well off in another.
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Kim lived a life of relative ease and privilege.
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She was terrified of flying. The relative advantages of air travel didn't tempt her at all.
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the relative strength of the dollar against the Mexican peso
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The two men stood at the bar discussing the relative merits of various sports cars.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
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Relative social position and relative command of this skill became regularly associated.
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Figure 2.2 shows the changing relative importance of manufacturing in employment terms.
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It had been designed in a period of relative economic stability and was not fitted for such tumultuous times.
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The object of job evaluation is to provide a systematic approach to defining the relative worth of different jobs.
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The trend is further underlined by the relative size of the companies acquired.
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There was something else Dilip offered me, the seductions of relative comfort.
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To sit in relative peace and quiet in the Miller house was a very rare occurrence and Terry was enjoying it.