SENSITIVE

adjective

COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES

a controversial/sensitive issue (= an issue that causes strong feelings and arguments )

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Abortion is a controversial issue.

a sensitive topic (= one that must be dealt with very carefully, because it may offend people )

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It is unusual for a judge to speak publicly about a sensitive topic such as religion.

a sensitive/touchy subject (= one that people may get upset about )

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Steer clear of complicated issues or sensitive subjects.

be sensitive to criticism (= to react to criticism, often in a bad way )

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He was highly sensitive to criticism in the press.

happy/sensitive/brave/simple etc soul

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He is really quite a sensitive soul.

of a nervous/sociable/sensitive etc disposition (= having a nervous etc character )

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The film is not suitable for people of a nervous disposition.

sensitive (= becoming red or sore easily )

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Special shampoos are available for those with sensitive skin.

COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS

■ ADVERB

as

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Every pore of his skin felt aware, as sensitive as it did after the luxury of a hot bath.

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She wondered if they would be as sensitive on her skin as they looked.

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The monoclonal antibody that we used is as sensitive to halofantrine as to its main metabolite, whose half-life exceeds 3 days.

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Government grants were available in cases where rail would keep lorries off roads regarded as sensitive .

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People who don't have a weight problem may simply not be as sensitive to these shifts.

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Even Howie can't stand Stonehenge, and Howie's about as sensitive as the fire back.

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She was becoming almost as sensitive to him as she had been all those years ago.

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Indeed, how you measure something as sensitive as intelligence poses problems.

environmentally

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Five of the dales of the Yorkshire Dales National Park have been designated as environmentally sensitive areas.

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Mark Foley, R-Fla., that would earmark $ 210 million to purchase environmentally sensitive areas near the Everglades.

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It is significant that such a mainstream and commercial manufacturer is hoping to launch an environmentally sensitive label.

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The extension would provide workings for a further 25 years in the heart of an environmentally sensitive area.

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They painted samples in an exercise designed to produce a better understanding of the Ecotech concept of more environmentally sensitive products.

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For those times it was an environmentally sensitive organisation.

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We will create new incentives to follow environmentally sensitive strategies and behaviour.

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Proposals I announced last month to create 12 new environmentally sensitive areas will more than treble the area covered.

especially

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In fact the water authorities are especially sensitive to criticism in the media.

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Honda uses great care to make the goals reasonable and attainable, and the top leaders are especially sensitive in that regard.

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Teenagers are said to be especially sensitive to the financial implications and aware of their own lack of power in the matter.

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J., journalists are especially sensitive to charges of brutality by sports stars.

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Some playing positions are prone to collide with a Floyd's fine tuning system and this one seems to be especially sensitive .

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You might also want to protect especially sensitive vegetation with plastic.

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Infant mortality is frequently assumed to be an especially sensitive indicator of severe poverty.

extremely

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It goes without saying that any infringements of these new restrictions will imperil what is already an extremely sensitive access agreement.

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The Arizona players are extremely sensitive on the talent-gap issue, especially when reminded of it by Tucson columnist Greg Hansen.

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Earthworms have extremely sensitive skins and can not thrive under acid conditions.

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This is a little girl who is extremely sensitive to touch; she feels fragile, thin-skinned, easily breakable herself.

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All osmotic pressure measurements are extremely sensitive to temperature and must be carried out under rigorously controlled temperature conditions.

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As more species of life are slowly added to the embryonic aquarium, the water becomes extremely sensitive to vicious cycles.

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It was an extremely sensitive matter, they were told.

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It was, moreover, an accusation to which its adherents in the Royal Society were extremely sensitive .

highly

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We need to be aware, however, that the school environment is a delicate ecosystem, highly sensitive to political whim.

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Managers need to handle highly sensitive direct contacts with clients.

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Such a condition also makes living organisms highly sensitive to their environment, reflecting the characteristics of mind and consciousness themselves.

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Holystone and Desktop, for instance, designate several highly sensitive undersea operations.

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For Tod is highly sensitive to this material.

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Unlike the highly sensitive child, the defiant child has some physical characteristics that make a more aggressive approach possible.

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Hence, the blind person may develop a superb sense of smell or highly sensitive hearing.

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Infants are highly sensitive to the quality of adult attention.

how

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There: people said this and that about him, but no one knew how sensitive he was, how kind.

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Events in the United States fourteen years later showed how sensitive the country was to Ameri-can casualties.

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His acute sense of observation was remarkable, and his pictures show how sensitive he was to his surroundings.

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This would depend on just how sensitive the child is and how her nervous system compensates for her sensitivity.

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Notice how sensitive the board is to weight movements the further back you step.

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The book also shows how sensitive preparations and aftercare can help ministers overcome some of the difficulties of a funeral.

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This analysis shows how sensitive these measures are to varying assumptions about unemployment and female labour for Participation.

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The third aim of the project concerns accuracy analysis: how sensitive to data revisions are standard tests of forecasting accuracy?

less

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As age increases, the inner ear becomes less sensitive to high frequencies.

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Sometimes a self-absorbed child is less sensitive visually as well.

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Those higher doses, in turn, lead to even less sensitive synapses.

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Teeth usually become less sensitive as their nerve and blood supply decreases.

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The match angler's fixed link-leger is less sensitive than a fixed paternoster as can be appreciated by studying Fig. 1.

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Patients became less sensitive to the drug.

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Waste exporters are now seeking less sensitive areas.

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The performance aspirations of any single breakthrough team were far less sensitive to interdependency.

more

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To experience something, ourselves, is to make us more sensitive to the needs and wants of others.

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This new reality helped engender a more sensitive ecclesial approach to the plight of Catholics in broken marriages.

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Cattle stealing was more sensitive to economic fluctuations in the twentieth century than it had been earlier.

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Yields of shorter-term notes, which are more sensitive to overnight rates set by the Fed, fell more.

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Some people are just much more sensitive and perceptive in transmitting or receiving data than others.

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Dennis is probably more sensitive to age-related remarks than most of us.

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His explanation should have been more sensitive to the interplay between local and national democratic influences on the policing of industrial disputes.

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Its a lot more sensitive than that.

most

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The synthesis of modifications in the anticodon stem and loop were shown to be the most sensitive ones.

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But how could he bear to strike that most sensitive part of himself in the process?

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Writers are among the most sensitive , the most intellectually anarchic, most representative, most probing of artists.

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Many of the most sensitive writers and artists of that period denounced the factories and the cities that sprawled out around them.

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It's designed to protect and soothe even the most sensitive male skins and prices start at £2.45.

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Dole, to his credit, has repeatedly declined to play politics in the most sensitive diplomatic areas.

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The announcement will cause concern in the Middle East, where water is one of the most sensitive strategic issues.

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In the most sensitive cases yields were reduced by 1 percent for every 1 percent cut in the ozone layer.

particularly

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There may also be a deep sense of insecurity about venturing off one's own academic patch which makes people particularly sensitive .

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It is there-fore not surprising that during this time the Carleton community was particularly sensitive to sexist behavior.

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Thirdly, its equilibrium solubility is particularly sensitive to temperature, reaching a maximum at 32.3°C.

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The person will have a high level of emotional arousal and be particularly sensitive to social influences which can affect arousal.

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This is a particularly sensitive area and care should be taken to reveal no more than is necessary.

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These initiation sites may represent areas containing calcium stores that are particularly sensitive to activators such as InsP 3.

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Jack de Bie's playing is rhythmically alive, thoughtful and passionate as required, with some particularly sensitive pedalling in evidence.

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Young children seem to have been particularly sensitive to the Windscale accident.

politically

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As with advocacy, this requires clarity of thought and an ability to think quickly, in a politically sensitive environment.

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State-owned enterprises are believed to face pressures to select profit-reducing choices where, for example, price rises are politically sensitive .

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The Senate move was part of a broader bipartisan agreement on how the politically sensitive investigation will proceed.

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One application for the X-ray destruction method could be in the politically sensitive area of destroying chemical weapons.

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What Clinton did with the veterans' budget illustrates the dilemma the White House faces with many politically sensitive constituencies.

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It may entail an obligation to obey certain of the more politically sensitive laws.

so

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But Alain, he is so sensitive , he has taken the affair to heart.

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Why should the Church feel so sensitive about its Black Virgins?

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For example, the power controls can be so sensitive that heat can be regulated by degree.

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He loved to play with trucks and cars and he was so sensitive to the other kids.

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The issue was so sensitive , he argued, that there should be a cross-party agreement.

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Because this child is so sensitive to feelings of embarrassment and humiliation, his needs must be respected.

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The reason they do not like it is that they are so sensitive about it.

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Summerlee had found an electric probe so sensitive it could detect the passage of a single electron.

too

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He listens attentively as questions are translated, chooses words carefully and dismisses several questions as too sensitive .

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Speedsensitive steering too sensitive at slow speeds.

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She was being too sensitive , she told herself.

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I thought Kareem was being a bit too sensitive , at the time.

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Both were too sensitive about the middle-of-the-road, liberal, humanitarian public.

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Everyone said I was born restless and too sensitive and intelligent for my own good.

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I know that he is retiring, but he need not be too sensitive .

very

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Adolescents are very sensitive about pretence, hypocrisy or deceit on the part of their parents.

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Very good looking, very sensitive , but cheerful.

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Bat cries, as we have seen, are indeed often very loud, and their ears are very sensitive .

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They perceive me as very sensitive , eager to do the right thing.

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Apart from that it was observed that the left hand edge appeared not to be very sensitive .

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For example, consider a very sensitive child who is easily distracted by every sight and sound around her.

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The potassium ferricyanide component is very sensitive , and will detect iron in calcite with 1% ferrous carbonate in solid solution.

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Psychologists classify as many as 10 to 15 percent of us as very sensitive .

■ NOUN

area

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Pay attention to sensitive areas such as ears, lips and nose.

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Salvage logging should be prohibited in sensitive areas ....

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The key question is how flexibility will be applied in sensitive areas such as foreign policy.

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Designating a somewhat less sensitive area of Soviet intercepts was the Delta series of code words.

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Now they're going back to a sensitive area .

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If accepted by the shipping community, it will mean masters' taking special precautions in 15 sensitive areas around Britain.

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We are touching here on the sensitive area of competitive tendering and of privatisation.

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Alex, however, subscribes to the standard conspiracy theory that the authorities undermine anyone investigating these sensitive areas .

child

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A sensitive child , she could tell that something was wrong with her father ... with everything.

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For example, consider a very sensitive child who is easily distracted by every sight and sound around her.

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The pain and humiliation to a sensitive child is crushing.

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Parents can help such highly sensitive children by showing them how to soothe themselves.

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However; the defiant child also tends to have a little better postural control than the overly sensitive child.

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Even more than the average child , sensitive children need to find ways to express their feelings.

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It is easier to be soothing with a highly sensitive child who is clingy and frightened than with a defiant child.

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That is because sensitive children , like all challenging children, have a wider range of behavior than more easy-going children.

information

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It is clear then that passive receipt of unpublished price sensitive information will suffice for liability for tippee trading.

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Included in this process will be the appropriate evaluation and utilization of Secure networks for the transmission of sensitive information .

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Also there are legal constraints on the use of price sensitive information .

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Those privy to sensitive information about mergers or acquisitions of companies worth millions or billions of pounds must not abuse that privilege.

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The market egalitarianism argument fails to draw a distinction between the legitimate and illegitimate use of non public price sensitive information .

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A trade magazine journalist was ordered in the High Court to disclose the source of commercially sensitive information .

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Some other sensitive information has limited disclosure.

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How would commercially sensitive information of one company be protected?

issue

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Expenses can be a sensitive issue but they should be available to all volunteers if needed.

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The development programme is also a sensitive issue .

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Weight remains a sensitive issue for Engler, who is constantly fighting a sometimes serious battle of the bulge.

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And being able to discuss sensitive issues with strangers while retaining a comfortable degree of anonymity often makes for startlingly intimate communication.

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Encourage employees to adopt a problem-solving attitude when discussing sensitive issues .

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How can teachers be supported to help them deal with sensitive issues ?

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Male resistance to contraception, where it exists, is also linked to the sensitive issue of authority within the household.

man

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He looked like an intelligent, sensitive man , completely happy with his life.

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On that night Tryan, although a sensitive man , walks to the church through a jeering mob.

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Most shaving products now contain moisturising properties but for the really sensitive man , Wilkinson have formulated Skin Solutions.

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Like all artistes, he is a sensitive man and you never offend his sensibilities.

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Larry's a builder, Robin's an art dealer, a refined, elegant and sensitive man .

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Both Jeremiah and Paul had such feelings; they were sensitive men .

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Jeremiah comes across as a very sensitive man , who didn't like taking a message which was being ignored.

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Here's another example of just how sensitive men can be.

skin

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For anyone worried about extra sensitive skin , there's also a fragrance free wipe.

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Very dry and sensitive skins can not use alcohol-based cleansers and may even find water-cleansing too much.

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Earthworms have extremely sensitive skins and can not thrive under acid conditions.

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There's biological, biological with fabric conditioner, non-biological and non biological for sensitive skins , plus delicate fabric hand wash.

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Like chameleons, some are able to vary the colour of their sensitive skins , to remain camouflaged.

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However, we know that young or sensitive skins of any age require special attention.

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It was shown that some one with normally sensitive skin would not have been affected but that the purchaser had abnormally sensitive skin.

soul

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Is your baby a cheeky chappie or a sensitive soul ?

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A sensitive soul walked into this town like a white missionary into a malarial swamp.

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Teachers, after all, are sensitive souls and easily upset - especially P.E. teachers.

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The sensitive souls found her more difficult to stomach.

subject

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But it is a sensitive subject .

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Shelby complained that Lake has failed to answer 25 detailed questions about a range of sensitive subjects .

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Sexuality is a sensitive subject , laced with complexities.

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Though that might touch on a sensitive subject ... I was sitting on the sofa, quietly crying.

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Partly perhaps because policing remains a controversial and sensitive subject in Ireland.

EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES

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a sensitive musician

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A teenager used his personal computer to break into sensitive US Air Force files.

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He's sensitive about his bad teeth, so try not to look at them.

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I didn't realize that Lee was so sensitive about her family.

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If you are a public figure you can't afford to be too sensitive to criticism.

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Joel is such a sensitive boy.

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My brother pretends he's tough, but he's actually pretty sensitive .

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My children are very sensitive about being treated in a patronising way.

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Paul is too sensitive for this job. He can't take even the smallest criticism.

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Tell me if any of these spots are sensitive .

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The administration claims that the documents contain information of a highly sensitive political nature.

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The minister admitted that highly sensitive documents had been leaked to the press.

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The team is gathering information on the sensitive subject of child abuse.

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This is a very sensitive recorder - it picks up every word you say.

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Underneath all that macho stuff, he's really a sensitive guy.

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Your competitors may have access to the company intranet, so never discuss commercially sensitive issues on-line.

EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS

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I knew we were on sensitive territory.

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In summary, increasing evidence from many studies has pointed to a sensitive period that is significant to the bonding experience.

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It is very sensitive to calcium and does not do well in alkaline or hard water.

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Some people are just much more sensitive and perceptive in transmitting or receiving data than others.

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The dark, clean-shaven face was strong and proud, the mouth firm yet sensitive .

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They are fit for any tank and, not being sensitive even to temperature variations, are suitable plants for beginners.

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They would not explode for a rabbit or fox, but were sensitive enough for a human body.

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When it comes to broaching the subject I don't think there's any sensitive way to do it.