verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
be/seem like a dream (= seem unreal )
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That summer was so wonderful it seemed like a dream.
It didn’t seem worth bothering
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It didn’t seem worth bothering the doctor about.
it is/seems reasonable to assume (that)
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It seems reasonable to assume that the book was written around 70 AD.
it seems certain that …
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It seemed certain that the other team would win.
look/sound/feel/taste/seem like
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The garden looked like a jungle.
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At last he felt like a real soldier.
looks/seems/sounds fine
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In theory, the scheme sounds fine.
sb seems/looks/appears certain to do sth
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For a while the whole project looked certain to fail.
seem impossible
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It seemed impossible that he would ever recover from the injury.
seem unaware
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John seemed totally unaware of the effect he was having on my daughters.
seem unhappy
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Did Bill seem unhappy to you?
seem/appear enthusiastic
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I wanted to go, but Helen seemed less enthusiastic.
seem/appear nervous
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She seemed nervous at first, but her presentation was good.
seem/appear obvious
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It seems obvious to me that he is guilty.
seem/appear/look likely
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Which candidate seems likely to win?
seem/look/appear shocked
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He glanced at his mother, who looked shocked.
seem/look/sound embarrassed
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The judge seemed embarrassed to be asking her such personal questions.
Strange as it may seem
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Strange as it may seem , I actually prefer cold weather.
what seemed like an eternity
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Here she waited for what seemed like an eternity .
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
almost
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It seemed almost to speak to her.
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At that point, even a 3, 000-mile plane ride home into relentless headwinds almost seemed preferable to Vancouver.
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Black rain clouds were riding up from the south, killing the light and making the day seem almost over.
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The severity of his inwardness almost seemed to demand it.
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It seemed almost impossible to many people that such tiny things as micro-organisms could have been fossilised at all.
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It begins to seem almost as far as 1848.
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Sometimes this seems almost to rebuke me, to be a heavy price to pay for a simple preference of male anatomy.
always
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In looking at childhood photographs, her sullenness, always seeming to be apart, looking rather sour, tense.
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He was simply hunting, but eagles always seem an omen.
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Gironella always seems acutely aware of these issues.
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She seems always in the process of ignoring this system when her strange husband is around.
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He is the only person I know who always seems to mean what he says when he talks about art.
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And isn't that the way it always seems to be when the champion goes on the decline?
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The basis of the Babylonian calendar seems always to have been lunar.
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The town has always seemed 30 miles off the edge of the universe.
likely
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It also seems likely that he-and the design team-were tempted by the clothes of the later period.
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The bill was approved 64-32 by the Senate on Wednesday, and approval seems likely in the House by early March.
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Interestingly enough, however, pressure for accountable government seems likely to come from another direction altogether.
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Four years ago, the school had so few students that closure seemed likely .
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It seems likely that two separate parties will emerge in its place.
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The error involved seems likely to be small relative to other uncertain-ties noted and, if so, is not serious.
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Everything is now in place for a rigged election that seems likely to usher in a military dictatorship.
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So, although predicting is risky, it seems likely that the special learner population will expand and pressures thereby will accelerate.
never
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Born when the earth sleeps, yet Effie never seemed to rest and had soon worn out a rather fragile Marjorie.
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The man seemed never to sleep.
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He never seemed to have a chance.
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Strangely enough, whenever I visit Motherhouse, I never seem to need it.
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The education ministry's minuscule maintenance budget never seemed to find its way up to tiny Varosh.
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However fast we run, we never seem to get anywhere.
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The only thing that is missing is the smell of steam and hot oil and that never seems all that far away.
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Thousands of people hurry past them each day and never seem to notice their beauty.
quite
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Hanging would seem quite a lenient sentence considering the enormity of his crime in those harsh old days.
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One of them, however, seems quite clear.
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But today with his mind too preoccupied to work he seemed quite unable to keep his hands off it.
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The abilities of the bonobos, in particular, seem quite promising.
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Somehow it didn't seem quite right.
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Everyone seemed quite at ease as they remained standing and casting large shadows on Lois and her group.
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He cut off its head with his sword. and this would seem quite reasonable; but could I write this?
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There was no mistaking the snow-covered surroundings for Casablanca, but as Azmi joined the youngsters he seemed quite at home.
very
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But for other experiments the interpretation seems very plausible.
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The Ptolemaic system seems very artificial to us today.
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All at once the hotel seemed very small - another small dark grubby place that was locking her in.
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Patterns of disruption and reconstitution of kin groups do seem very different now by comparison with the past.
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In the absence of new developments, old ones may seem very impressive for quite a long while.
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He seems very silent and uneasy.
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Antiracism seems very comfortable with this idea of blacks as victims.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
be/feel/seem etc disposed to do sth
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Congress has had a torrent of learned advice on this amendment, none of which it seems disposed to listen to.
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Ernest Conway had never felt disposed to adopt a conventional, benign, grandfatherly role.
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Gradually the talkative groups settled into a contented silence, but no one seemed disposed to go to sleep.
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Headteachers say governors come to school on special occasions but don't seem disposed to become involved more routinely in school affairs.
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James didn't seem disposed to take the hint.
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Seb's father was a large, comfortable-looking man who did not seem disposed to make a fuss.
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The brothers exchanged glances, neither saying a word, though they seemed disposed to.
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The very houses seemed disposed to pack up and take trips.
be/seem/look nothing like sb/sth
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Certainly the lateral geniculate nucleus in rats looks nothing like the lateral geniculate nucleus in monkeys.
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It's classed as being a conifer but it looks nothing like one.
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Remember that the intermediate stored pattern may be pretty abstract, looking nothing like the input pattern.
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She insisted that I looked nothing like Majella.
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She looked nothing like her photograph.
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The problem is that in its juvenile form it looks nothing like the adult specimen.
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The zone blitz can fluster an offense because it looks nothing like a conventional blitz.
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This suspect looks nothing like Nichols, a slightly built, light-skinned man in his 40s with thinning hair.
not be/feel/seem herself
not be/feel/seem himself
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He had not felt himself a part of what governments decided.
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He had not felt himself bound by their rules - basically, he hadn't felt himself.
not seem/be/feel yourself
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
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"Why did you move to New York?" "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
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It seemed to Jim that Amy was worried about something.
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It seems likely that they will release the hostages soon.
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It seems that someone forgot to lock the door.
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Katie seems happy at her new school.
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Kevin seems like a nice guy.
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Lack of money seems to be the main problem.
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Ricky graduated, but didn't seem to know what to do with his life. He was drifting.
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The whole situation seems very strange to me.
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There seems to be something wrong with the TV.
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There were so many delays - it seemed as if we would never get home.
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You seem kind of nervous.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
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He seems to have no particular craving for society.
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Mr Assad once seemed to support perhaps the easiest solution: his son.
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The circle seems unbroken, and now, in this new millennium, Showcase promises to be even more successful.
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The voting seems in fact to have been orderly, though claims made about the plan were plainly false.
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They kept ordering more brandy and all seemed genuinely upset.