(n.) A colloquial expression, not employed in formal discourse or writing.
Example Sentences:
(1) When the Washington Post reports a boom in bullet-proof backpacks for children, it is not a good time to be a resident of a place colloquially known as The Arms.
(2) The prose rhythm and colloquial diction here work against exaggeration, but allow for humour.
(3) In colloquial terms, senior ministers in the new government should have been having more cups of tea with the crossbench members in the Senate in the weeks and months after the election.
(4) This paper attempts a new departure both in German dialectology and in phonemic analysis: (i) It is based on an open corpus of spontaneous, colloquial speech.
(5) The Stanford Health Assessment Questionnaire was modified for use amongst British patients by the substitution of colloquial expressions.
(6) For both thyroxine and triiodothyronine the component contribution of within-individual variation to the population-based variation (the latter also termed the 'reference interval', or colloquially the 'normal range') was small.
(7) We can end our nation’s domestic violence epidemic by properly funding crisis lines, legal centres, emergency accommodation, affordable long-term accommodation and prevention.” Thousands of Australians still turned away from homeless services Read more Labor introduced a private members’ bill earlier in the year to criminalise the sharing of private sexual imagery without the consent of the subject, a practice colloquially known as revenge porn.
(8) Emad Hajjaj, a popular Jordanian cartoonist, drew an elderly Palestinian woman by her sagging UN tent saying – in an untranslatable pun on the words “Charlie” and the colloquial Arabic “I have been” – that she had lived as a refugee for the 67 years since the creation of Israel in 1948.
(9) The media as a whole should be united in defending freedom of expression.” NewstrAid, known colloquially as “Old Ben”, was set up in 1839 to support newspaper vendors in London.
(10) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a poem that succeeds through a series of vivid contrasts: standard English contrasting with colloquial speech; the devotion and virtue of the young knight contrasting with the growling threats of his green foe; exchanges of courtly love contrasting with none-too-subtle sexual innuendo; exquisite robes and priceless crowns contrasting with spurting blood and the steaming organs of butchered animals; polite, indoor society contrasting with the untamed, unpredictable outdoors.
(11) Whereas in 37 of 51 patients a normal or almost normal colloquial speech could be demonstrated, 30 of 39 patients with cleft lip and palate showed a normal or almost normal realization of the test sentences.
(12) Comey made self-deprecating jokes and slipped into colloquialisms.
(13) He was studiedly colloquial – "You won't believe this, Jacqueline" – and cast himself as the rebel.
(14) Being friends with Irish people is almost a nostalgic thing – we can speak some Irish language, reminisce about Irish colloquialisms and talk about sports.
(15) Similar changes were also observed on acupuncture points CV17 (Shan Zhong), CV 22 (Tian Tu), Yin Tang (at an area just between the eyebrows: the pituitary gland representation area, colloquially known as the "third eye") and GV20(Bai Hui), the entire pericardium meridian & triple burner meridian, their acupuncture points, the adrenal glands, testes, ovaries and perineum, as well as along the entire spinal vertebrae, particularly on and above the 12th thoracic vertebra, medulla oblongata, pons, and the intestinal representation areas of the brain located just above and behind the upper ear.
(16) In his commentary, Robinson writes that Chaplin "can move without warning from the baldly colloquial to dazzling yet apparently effortless imagery, as when the crushed Calvero gazes 'wearily into the secretive river, gliding phantom-like in a life of its own … smiling satanically at him as it flecked myriad lights from the moon and from the lamps along the embankment'".
(17) When a physician performs unprofessional activity breaking the rules of his profession, which is colloquially interpreted as charlatanism, the term "malpractice" is used.
(18) He volunteered initially but within months had secured a permanent position in the West Wing, latterly as the President's aide – a role dubbed the "body man", or more colloquially "butt boy" in the US.
(19) The voice that Plath eventually created is indeed fresh, brazen and colloquial, but also sardonic and bitter, the story of a young woman's psychological disintegration and eventual – provisional – recovery.
(20) He might have said "we agree to disagree" or used some other flaccid political colloquialism for the truth – that to Gordon, this lady's views were bizarre – but he just said it like it was.
Piffle
Definition:
Example Sentences:
(1) Is it hopelessly old fart-ish to hope exposure that to the horrors described by Buergenthal will remind all of us of the piffling nature of our next household conflagration about who gets to wear which pair of jeans, or whether homework on the weekend really constitutes a hardship – or even, somehow, temper the demand for new electronic equipment?
(2) If he can't do this here, then his global rhetoric will look thin indeed - and it's no use announcing some piffling sum and pretending it will do.
(3) Dan Nolan (@dannolan) PEFO more like piffle boom August 13, 2013 3.40am BST Bowen is asked whether the assumptions in PEFO are a reflection on the efficacy or otherwise of the PNG Solution.
(4) The bottom line for us is they were asking the taxpayers for $50m to buy new plant and equipment … so Coca-Cola Amatil could make a larger profit,” Hockey said, as he campaigned for next weekend’s by-election in the Brisbane seat of Griffith But Sharman Stone, the Coalition backbencher who represents the area, said the government is “scapegoating” SPC Ardmona and exaggerating “piffling” issues in the companies’ enterprise agreement to draw the struggling fruit manufacturer into a “union witch-hunt”.
(5) The government is “scapegoating” SPC Ardmona and exaggerating “piffling” issues in the companies’ enterprise agreement to draw the struggling fruit manufacturer into a “union witch-hunt”, the Coalition backbencher Sharman Stone has said.
(6) As a result, disabled people are losing more than any other group, not by some piffling, coincidental amount, but by a factor of three or four; by thousands of pounds a year.
(7) It’s true that claimants are sanctioned for piffling reasons .
(8) The targets aren't piffling, incidentally – they are significantly beyond "answering to your name".
(9) There was never any question of me being offered it, or of it being debated … It’s just, as they say, poppycock and piffle.” The tensions surrounding the reshuffle were illustrated in the early evening as a heated discussion appeared to break out in Corbyn’s office after the Labour leader outlined his thinking for the reshuffle to Benn.
(10) Eurosceptics are right to think that the terms secured are piffling, even if he gets everything on the table.
(11) But there is, at least, anecdotal evidence to suggest that the often perceptive mayor's notion is an "inverted pyramid of piffle".
(12) Over the past century they were used not only to "explain" this piffle about cornflakes but, more insidiously, to explain differences in achievement between black and white schoolchildren in the US.
(13) Cameron found himself on the back foot, defending his plans to renegotiate the terms of Britain's EU membership in the face of Lawson's contemptuous assessment that he will secure only "piffling changes".
(14) The DfE’s guidelines on the use of exclamation marks for its spelling and grammar tests were “piffle” and “tortuous nonsense”, according to Blower.
(15) But Stone, the member for the seat of Murray which includes Shepparton, said the provisions were “piffling” and “add up at most to a few thousand dollars when the company has been losing millions at the plant because of the broader economic conditions and because of the government’s policies.” The “wet” allowance, she said, had only ever been paid to workers who provided their own protective “space suits” to be worn when using caustic soda to clean the plant.
(16) Sandler, a perennial Razzie "favourite", saw his film beat rivals such as Will and Jaden Smith sci-fi bomb After Earth , festive celluloid piffle A Madea Christmas and ensemble turkey Movie 43 , all of which scored six nominations.
(17) These sentiments are dismissed by Merivel's Quaker friend, Pearce, as "pagan, freakish piffle", but Merivel clings to them, orders an artist's smock and a floppy hat, canvases, pigments and brushes, and sets about his task with his characteristic over-enthusiasm, only to understand very quickly that his work has no value whatsoever.
(18) But he wrote a load of racist, reactionary, negative, neocon piffle."
(19) There was never any question of me being offered it, or of it being debated … It’s just, as they say, poppycock and piffle.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest “It’s poppycock and piffle”: Diane Abbott dismisses shadow foreign secretary rumour Lewis, a new MP who has served in the army in Afghanistan, said he would not be keen to take on a shadow cabinet role so quickly.
(20) Instead, I'm snacking on the scraps of joyous piffle like Alex Polizzi's The Fixer .