(n.) Something frightful, as a specter; anything imaginary that causes needless fright; something used to excite needless fear; also, something really dangerous, used to frighten children, etc.
(n.) Same as Bugaboo.
(a.) Causing needless fright.
(v. t.) To alarm with idle phantoms.
Example Sentences:
(1) I doubt any of us have a real bugbear with the comedian himself, because bitterness and disappointment is something most of us can relate to on some level.
(2) This is the uncomfortable truth, of course, which, after four decades at the sharp end of the fertility industry, has become Grudzinskas' bugbear.
(3) One dev says: "My biggest bugbear at the moment (on my lowly 3GS) is the number of times app quit due to memory shortages, or because they've taken too long to load.
(4) Her serve has been her bugbear since her shoulder operation six years ago, and it is a mark of her grit that she has triumphed despite it.
(5) Gay ubiquity began to make it seem difficult for homophobes to travel anywhere interesting without encountering their bugbear.
(6) One of the bugbears among locals who hoped the Ridings would remain open is the fact that, in last week's secondary school league tables, it did considerably better than it has in the past: the number of pupils scoring five A*-C grades at GCSE in subjects including maths and English was up from 4% to 13%.
(7) Letting agents' fees are a bugbear of all the tenant campaign groups.
(8) That it was more than just a personal bugbear became clear in June 2013, when we learned that PennCAN, yet another so-called “school-reform” group focused on vouchers, privatization, and the destruction of public schooling, had financed a “secret poll” that encouraged Corbett to attack the PFT in hopes of gaining support ahead of his midterm reelection campaign.
(9) The EHRC has long been a bugbear for the Tory right who see it as a relic of the past.
(10) Painfully slow mobile internet connections have long been a bugbear for smartphone owners made to wait while trying to load a simple map or webpage.
(11) I haven’t got any problems with people at the FA, but that’s one of my bugbears.” Coulthard checks the walls of her house for a clue as to when England first played at Wembley.
(12) That's what politicians should be asking us to envisage when they set upon this bugbear with their big sticks: people on very low incomes earning a very small amount extra and not declaring it.
(13) The policy has helped to shape the landscape of diversity within higher education for 35 years, and has become an growing bugbear of the conservative right that sees it as a form of discrimination against white students.
(14) But the new performance management system, which is in its third year, is the major bugbear for most staff.
(15) After a pledge to pull the Tory party out of the main centre-right grouping in Brussels after the 2009 European elections backfired, Mr Cameron has largely ignored the issue of Europe - a bugbear for past Tory leaders from Margaret Thatcher onwards.
(16) The MPC appeared to have become more confident about the outlook for productivity, which has remained a bugbear of Britain’s post-crisis recovery.
(17) Much of the book is given over to how he got into campaigning for stem cell research, the hope of many Parkinson's sufferers and bugbear of the Christian right, which sees it as a moral equivalent to abortion.
(18) Among the biggest bugbears revealed in the consultation document – the draft ppdate guidance on green claims - are general, untestable claims like products being "eco-" or "environmentally friendly".
(19) Wendi not only has no voting position in the family trust (nor do her two children) and is quite a bugbear to the people who do, but she also hasn't had a job in almost 15 years.
(20) A chief bugbear of Van Gaal before this game had been that United needed to turn in a display for the full 90 minutes.
Idle
Definition:
(superl.) Of no account; useless; vain; trifling; unprofitable; thoughtless; silly; barren.
(superl.) Not called into active service; not turned to appropriate use; unemployed; as, idle hours.
(superl.) Not employed; unoccupied with business; inactive; doing nothing; as, idle workmen.
(superl.) Given rest and ease; averse to labor or employment; lazy; slothful; as, an idle fellow.
(superl.) Light-headed; foolish.
(v. i.) To lose or spend time in inaction, or without being employed in business.
(v. t.) To spend in idleness; to waste; to consume; -- often followed by away; as, to idle away an hour a day.
Example Sentences:
(1) Even with hepatic lipase, phospholipid hydrolysis could not deplete VLDL and IDL of sufficient phospholipid molecules to account for the loss of surface phospholipid that accompanies triacylglycerol hydrolysis and decreasing core volume as LDL is formed (or for conversion of HDL2 to HDL3).
(2) Eager to show I was a good student, the next time we had sex, I noticed that one of my hands was, indeed, lying idle – and started to pat him on the back, absently, as if trying to wind a baby.
(3) And imagine he then found that, far from acting swiftly to capture, arrest and charge him, the Metropolitan police force (who knew something about his activities) initially stood idly by as his list of victims grew and grew.
(4) The balance is fragile and the threat of a spiral of decline is not an idle one.
(5) The KBS hypothesis of autism is not simply an idle exercise.
(6) "There are idle MPs with no outside interests and there are fantastic public servants that do have them."
(7) On Saturday an idle digg ing machine signalled the hasty clearing of the building site to make way for the refugees, who have fled from countries including Syria and Eritrea .
(8) In circumstances in which energy conversion rate and supplies of reducing power exceed the capacity of the biosynthetic machinery, energy-dependent H2 production presumably represents a regulatory device that facilitates "energy-idling."
(9) Relative to EM, Meritec had the highest specificity (97%), followed by Virogen (95%), IDL (91%), Pathfinder (85%), Behring (81%), Bartels (72%), and Rotazyme (71%).
(10) Thus, introducing fish oil into an atherogenic diet reduced the number of VLDL, IDL and LDL particles in plasma by as much as 50%, reduced the cholesteryl ester content of the circulating lipoprotein, and reduced the ability of the VLDL to stimulate cholesterol esterification in macrophages.
(11) 12.44am BST Ah, here's @NotCoachTito, sitting somewhere idly wondering what it's like in Fenway tonight...actually, he may have a decent idea of the atmosphere.
(12) It was on the set of The Frost Report that production staff began to refer to Barker and Corbett as "the two Ronnies", while the writing team included Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Graham Chapman, and Eric Idle – every Monty Python member bar Terry Gilliam – as well as Marty Feldman and lead writer Antony Jay, who went on to create Yes, Minister.
(13) Moreover, a larger fraction of plasma VLDL is transformed into IDL and LDL, the latter representing the main plasma cholesterol carrier.
(14) Hagere Selam remains a modest place of mudwalled shops with corrugated roofs, cows, donkeys and sheep wandering unpaved streets and children idling away an afternoon at table football – a generation with no memory of the famine that killed hundreds of thousands and woke up the world.
(15) Epidemiological studies in humans suggest that IDL or remnant lipoproteins are predictors of the severity or progression of atherosclerosis.
(16) It would be idle to pretend that Cameron doesn't have talents as a leader.
(17) A chlorine sanitizer was circulated (5 min, 40 degrees C) and the unit containing sanitizing solution left idle overnight.
(18) Facebook Twitter Pinterest Either way, I love Jane for idly sticking two fingers up at the idea of a spa break in Rhodes or other emblems of “sophistication” being the only thing to aspire to.
(19) Bidders have spent an estimated £1m each on their bids but, according to one industry source, the process has stalled and franchise owners are being forced to retain expensive but idle bidding teams.
(20) The results indicate that a simple depletion of his-tRNA is not sufficient to elicit the response and suggest that idle ribosomes are required for regulation.