I. noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a string of failures (= a series of failures )
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The team has had a string of failures in recent games.
a string of victories (= a series of victories )
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The team won a string of victories.
a string/series/set of coincidences
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The accident happened because of a string of unfortunate coincidences.
a string/stringed instrument
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He spent many hours playing string instruments of all kinds.
cut the apron strings
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You’re 25 years old, and you still haven’t cut the apron strings .
hold/control the purse strings
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It all comes down to who holds the purse strings.
instrumental/string/brass etc ensemble
loop of wire/rope/string etc
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A loop of wire held the gate shut.
string bean
string of pearls (= a necklace made of pearls )
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a string of pearls
string quartet (= four people playing musical instruments with strings, such as violins )
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a string quartet
string tie
tied to...apron strings
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Jeff is still tied to his mother’s apron strings .
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
long
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Death of his father. Long string of jokes about the funeral, as though to show how well he was taking it.
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Two divorces, a long string of live-in boyfriends.
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Our Social Security system has already attached a very long string to generations of children for support of their parents' generation.
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TIMES$ A 24 character long string pseudo-variable which reads and sets the system clock.
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I thought of the long string of bedtimes that had joined our lives.
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Beads can choke babies if swallowed, and long strings of beads can also half-strangle older children.
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We picked up to a hover, moved out, and parked in a long string down the middle of row three.
■ NOUN
character
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A character string consists of words separated by commas or spaces.
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It is to such character string formats that we now turn.
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This chapter mentioned several ways in which the end of a character string may be indicated.
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A 36-bit word holds six 6-bit characters , and a character string consists of a number of consecutive words.
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We therefore consider building an architecture round character string manipulation, rather than round word manipulation.
letter
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Sayre used di-gram and tri-gram statistics to rule out implausible letter string combinations.
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Use of n-grams requires little storage or processing but is less efficient at discriminating between acceptable and unacceptable letter strings .
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Statistical information about n-grams has been applied to the output to select a single most likely letter string result.
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Lexical lookup is more demanding of storage and processing but is better at rejecting unacceptable letter strings .
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This involved presenting a priming word just prior to a target letter string .
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In these cases, letter string combinations are only ruled out if they do not occur in the sample source.
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Taken together, these character candidates produce a number of letter string candidates for any one word.
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Sayre states that in most cases, there are less than four resulting alternative letter strings , and usually one.
purse
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The other half of him is Yorkshire, giving us yet again a man strangled by his own purse strings .
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The business leaders wanted the state to loosen its purse strings and give the schools' budgets a healthy boost.
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The same hopes as any other pensioner, unless of course that pensioner happens to hold the purse strings .
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Why, for instance, does Dahlia continue to control the purse strings after Ella is revealed as the rightful heir?
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After closing the caecum with a purse string ligature, the loops of intestine were restored to the abdominal cavity.
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All these issues add up to political fire works on Capitol Hill before Congress loosens its purse strings .
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Nevertheless, the purse strings have been loosened sufficiently to provide a palatable enough feast.
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This means restraint in public spending and holding back the natural enthusiasm of a clutch of new ministers to open the purse strings .
quartet
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There was a party in the ballroom: sparkling chandeliers, string quartet .
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Remember those glittering parties, the lanterns lining the drive, the string quartet playing Viennese waltzes?
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Jacqui watched from a distance as they drank iced coffee and danced to the string quartet .
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Mind has waited for 3 billion years on this planet before composing its first string quartet .
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Howarth has got a string quartet going at the Lab and they gave a concert there.
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The string quartet within the orchestra resembles Faure.
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If he wanted to hear a string quartet there was no question of going out in the evening to a concert.
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Stravinsky was never at home with the warm homogeneity of the string quartet .
section
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The string section repeatedly cut through his fraught baritone with great sheets of emotional counterpoint.
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He balanced the string sections between themselves.
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Mark Wigglesworth has a smile which would beam the most recalcitrant string section into bowing with bravura.
word
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A string such as can be parsed into six different word strings even when the word boundary is known.
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A probability was assigned to any word string that could be formed from the spoken input.
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In the following chapters we discuss possible ways of reducing the number of word strings .
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However, we found indications in the last chapter that this could lead to a very large number of possible word strings .
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The syntactic analyser identifies the most syntactically acceptable word strings , whilst the semantic analyser identifies the most semantically plausible.
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However, a knowledge of pair-wise transitional probability is often insufficient to select the target word string .
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However, if this is not the case we may find a combinatorial explosion of word strings .
■ VERB
attach
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However, if they were not attached to a string when new and soft they will have to be drilled.
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Our Social Security system has already attached a very long string to generations of children for support of their parents' generation.
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Jones attached a piece of string to the bomb's detonator pin and a breeze block.
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If attaching strings to future generations without their consent is wrong, the Social Security system is indefensible.
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A day after the successful flight, a stronger line was attached to the kite string .
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But they attached strings to the aid.
control
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It is almost as if the muscles controlled the fingers as marionettes are controlled by their strings .
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Why, for instance, does Dahlia continue to control the purse strings after Ella is revealed as the rightful heir?
pull
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But if he was the puppet, who was pulling the strings and to what dance?
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He pulled strings to get the two of them into a university.
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An exhibit where you pull a string and hear Wolfman Jack howl?
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Mrs Naulls was in Sunningdale because her son Stanley was a Hilderbridge councillor and had pulled strings .
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The scientists pulling his strings are erratic.
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She, who had always pulled the strings , to have found herself in this position.
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This, of course, leaves Karadzic amply able to pull strings from backstage.
tie
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Inside the box was a small flat package wrapped in muslin and tied tightly with string .
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A parental dividend would simply tie the string in a more direct and arguably fairer way.
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The bundle was tied together with string and had been left there and forgotten one morning when Lavinia was in a hurry.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
apron strings
brass/rhythm/woodwind/string etc section
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A brass section blares on trumpet, tenor saxophone and bass sax.
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It was in Vegas that Sinatra decided to book Norvo as his opening act and as his regular rhythm section .
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Now, drummers like Roy Haynes or Elvin Jones could be heard and studied, not buried in big-band rhythm sections .
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The rhythm Section became the stars.
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The rhythm section provided a perfect cushion for the soloists, springy and supportive but never obtrusive.
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The string section repeatedly cut through his fraught baritone with great sheets of emotional counterpoint.
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Try I fall in love too easily for the young Marsalis's strong sound gelling with the experience of the rhythm section .
highly strung
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Because of his fine pedigree he was a little bit more highly strung than the others and would set off rather sharply.
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Being nervous, highly strung or liable to sudden anger and 2.
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But she had to leave because she was a bit highly strung; and of course you know Virginia herself was.
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For one thing, Nijinsky started life so excitable and highly strung that O'Brien warned his owner he might not be trainable.
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I think he is just an ill and shocked young man with the highly strung temperament of so many artistic people.
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Paul was highly strung, working too hard.
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Sandra was a dealer lacking in professional experience, who had a highly strung temperament.
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They were all very highly strung and eventually, they did break up.
how long is a piece of string?
pull strings
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Samuels pulled strings to get her daughter a job in Mitchell's office.
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Elfed could and did pull strings on the local Co-operative committee.
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Gooch has developed as a captain, too, pulling strings whereas before he might have retreated.
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He pulled strings to get the two of them into a university.
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Mrs Naulls was in Sunningdale because her son Stanley was a Hilderbridge councillor and had pulled strings.
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This, of course, leaves Karadzic amply able to pull strings from backstage.
pull the/sb's strings
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Who is really pulling the strings at the White House?
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But if he was the puppet, who was pulling the strings and to what dance?
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However, I was going to try to pull the right strings.
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In his own way, he knew how to pull her strings.
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She, who had always pulled the strings, to have found herself in this position.
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So, when he died, the puppets had no-one to pull their strings anymore.
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Swindon's John Reynolds the man who pulled the strings for Andre Agassi.
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The scientists pulling his strings are erratic.
the purse strings
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Nevertheless, the purse strings have been loosened sufficiently to provide a palatable enough feast.
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Now local transportation agencies decide where the purse strings.
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One of Syl's ways of expressing displeasure was by tightening the purse strings.
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The Government have no intention of giving power to anyone except those who hold the purse strings.
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The same hopes as any other pensioner, unless of course that pensioner happens to hold the purse strings.
▪
This means restraint in public spending and holding back the natural enthusiasm of a clutch of new ministers to open the purse strings.
▪
Why, for instance, does Dahlia continue to control the purse strings after Ella is revealed as the rightful heir?
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
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I need a piece of string to tie this package.
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The pen was hanging from a string on the wall.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
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Almost every trainer with a string of 20 horses shares the same ultimate ambition - to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
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Is this a string of isolated anecdotes or a pattern of substandard care?
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It will give that tight West Coast strum with the bass strings becoming almost percussive.
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She pulled the string tight, strangling him.
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The strings vibrate again, underscoring my panic.
II. verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
highly
▪
Breeds differ in how highly strung they are, how much they snap at children and in their fondness for barking.
■ NOUN
sentence
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Never mind he can't string two sentences together - he'd never admit that.
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Look for where the names pop out, or where they are strung together into sentences .
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Many are by journalists, who ought to know how to string a few sentences together.
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Female speaker I can say the odd word, but I can't string a sentence together yet.
word
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I never could string two words together, even at school.
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The writers could string words together like beads on a necklace.
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I can't string two words together, not really.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
apron strings
brass/rhythm/woodwind/string etc section
▪
A brass section blares on trumpet, tenor saxophone and bass sax.
▪
It was in Vegas that Sinatra decided to book Norvo as his opening act and as his regular rhythm section .
▪
Now, drummers like Roy Haynes or Elvin Jones could be heard and studied, not buried in big-band rhythm sections .
▪
The rhythm Section became the stars.
▪
The rhythm section provided a perfect cushion for the soloists, springy and supportive but never obtrusive.
▪
The string section repeatedly cut through his fraught baritone with great sheets of emotional counterpoint.
▪
Try I fall in love too easily for the young Marsalis's strong sound gelling with the experience of the rhythm section .
highly strung
▪
Because of his fine pedigree he was a little bit more highly strung than the others and would set off rather sharply.
▪
Being nervous, highly strung or liable to sudden anger and 2.
▪
But she had to leave because she was a bit highly strung; and of course you know Virginia herself was.
▪
For one thing, Nijinsky started life so excitable and highly strung that O'Brien warned his owner he might not be trainable.
▪
I think he is just an ill and shocked young man with the highly strung temperament of so many artistic people.
▪
Paul was highly strung, working too hard.
▪
Sandra was a dealer lacking in professional experience, who had a highly strung temperament.
▪
They were all very highly strung and eventually, they did break up.
how long is a piece of string?
the purse strings
▪
Nevertheless, the purse strings have been loosened sufficiently to provide a palatable enough feast.
▪
Now local transportation agencies decide where the purse strings.
▪
One of Syl's ways of expressing displeasure was by tightening the purse strings.
▪
The Government have no intention of giving power to anyone except those who hold the purse strings.
▪
The same hopes as any other pensioner, unless of course that pensioner happens to hold the purse strings.
▪
This means restraint in public spending and holding back the natural enthusiasm of a clutch of new ministers to open the purse strings.
▪
Why, for instance, does Dahlia continue to control the purse strings after Ella is revealed as the rightful heir?
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
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Help me string the popcorn to hang on the Christmas tree.
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The 200 houses are strung along a narrow 5-mile road.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
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Alma made them string clothesline around so she could stretch blanketing over him and down to the floor without its touching him.
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Awake all night, Jimmy was bleary-eyed but too strung up on his nerves to notice he was tired.
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He strung a rope from the roof of the family barn to the ground and practiced aerial feats.
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If there was ever a task that wanted teamwork, it was stringing tree lights.
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She distrusted the offer of talks which had no other purpose than to string out negotiation.
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You're not just stringing me along?