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Channel: Kate Woodford, Author at About Words - Cambridge Dictionary blog
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Abiding memories and long-term effects: words that mean ‘lasting a long time’

by Kate Woodford Last week I posted a blog on the language we use to talk about things that last a short time. This post focuses on the opposite: describing things that last a long time. Some...

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Bird’s-eye views and headless chickens: animal idioms, part 3

by Kate Woodford This is the third in our popular series of blogs about common animal idioms. We’ll start with a creature that is found in a few frequently used idioms: the bird. (Sadly, the first two...

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From one day to the next: the language of change

by Kate Woodford Change is something that we all have to deal with throughout our lives. Whether at work, at home or in our relationships, change is something that none of us can escape. It makes sense...

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Black sheep and cans of worms: animal idioms, part 4

By Kate Woodford This post – the last in our popular ‘animal idioms’ series – looks at idioms featuring animals that range in size from an elephant to a worm. Most of today’s idioms have a rather...

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Evolving and disrupting: verbs meaning ‘change’

by Kate Woodford In a post last month, we looked at adjectives and phrases that describe change. This post will look at some of the many verbs that mean ‘change’. A lot of ‘change’ verbs mean ‘to...

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Working flat out and flagging: describing how we work

by Kate Woodford How was your day at work or college? Was it useful (=giving positive results)? Did you get a lot done? Perhaps you had a lot of work to do but, for some reason, found it hard to get...

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Absorbing and thought-provoking: words meaning ‘interesting’

by Kate Woodford On this blog, we often look at the various English words and phrases that we use to express the same concept. This week we’re focusing on the word ‘interesting’. There are lots of...

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Pieces of cake and sour grapes: food idioms

by Kate Woodford This week, we’re looking at English idioms that feature food and drink words. As there are lots of these idioms, we’re focusing today on idioms containing words for sweet food. Next...

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Couch potatoes and peas in a pod: more food idioms

by Kate Woodford Last month, we looked at idioms featuring words for sweet items of food. Changing the order in which we usually eat food, (savoury, then sweet), we’re now focusing on idioms that...

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Dreary and mind-numbing: interesting ways of saying ‘boring’

by Kate Woodford We recently looked at different ways of saying ‘interesting’. Sadly, not everything in life is fascinating, absorbing or gripping. Now and then, something that we watch, read or in...

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Sitting on the fence and turning a corner (Everyday idioms in newspapers)

by Kate Woodford The idioms and phrases in this week’s post are taken from a range of national newspapers that were published during the course of a weekend. We write a newspaper idioms post every...

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See you on the march! (The language of protests)

by Kate Woodford On September 20th, four million people across the globe expressed their concern and anger about climate change by demonstrating (=gathering or walking in a public place to show their...

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Comical and hysterical (Words that mean funny)

by Kate Woodford ‘A day without laughter is a day wasted,’ said Charlie Chaplin, the comic actor and filmmaker. Whether or not you agree with him, you’ll almost certainly want to describe, in English,...

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Learning Synonyms

by Kate Woodford Many of our About Words blog posts aim to provide our readers with a range of interesting words and phrases for saying the same or a similar thing.  We’re talking, of course, about...

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Handing down and passing on (Phrasal verbs that mean ‘give’)

by Kate Woodford It’s sometimes said that it’s better to give than to receive. Whether or not you like the act of giving, we hope you’ll enjoy reading about all the different ways to talk about giving....

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Christmas phrases

by Kate Woodford It’s Christmas! At Cambridge Dictionary, we like to get into the Christmas spirit so today, we’re bringing you festive phrases with a round-up of idioms that contain a word that we...

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Give yourself a pat on the back! (The language of praising)

by Kate Woodford I thought our About Words readers might enjoy a positive post this week, so today I’m focusing on the language of praise – saying nice, positive things about someone or something....

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Donating and allocating (Verbs that mean ‘give’)

by Kate Woodford This is the second part of a two-part blog post focusing on words meaning ‘give’. The first post looked at phrasal verbs with this meaning. Here, we look at single words in this area....

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Outlooks and forecasts (The language of predictions)

by Kate Woodford It’s February – still more or less the start of the year – and you may still be thinking about the months ahead and predicting what’s likely to happen. With this in mind, we’re looking...

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Beds of roses and sore thumbs (Newspaper idioms)

by Kate Woodford Readers of this blog often ask us for posts on English idioms. Understandably, they also tell us that it’s important that the idioms are used now. One way that we make sure we focus on...

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