(n.) An instrument by means of which the bolt of a lock is shot or drawn; usually, a removable metal instrument fitted to the mechanism of a particular lock and operated by turning in its place.
(n.) An instrument which is turned like a key in fastening or adjusting any mechanism; as, a watch key; a bed key, etc.
(n.) That part of an instrument or machine which serves as the means of operating it; as, a telegraph key; the keys of a pianoforte, or of a typewriter.
(n.) A position or condition which affords entrance, control, pr possession, etc.; as, the key of a line of defense; the key of a country; the key of a political situation. Hence, that which serves to unlock, open, discover, or solve something unknown or difficult; as, the key to a riddle; the key to a problem.
(n.) That part of a mechanism which serves to lock up, make fast, or adjust to position.
(n.) A piece of wood used as a wedge.
(n.) The last board of a floor when laid down.
(n.) A keystone.
(n.) That part of the plastering which is forced through between the laths and holds the rest in place.
(n.) A wedge to unite two or more pieces, or adjust their relative position; a cotter; a forelock.
(n.) A bar, pin or wedge, to secure a crank, pulley, coupling, etc., upon a shaft, and prevent relative turning; sometimes holding by friction alone, but more frequently by its resistance to shearing, being usually embedded partly in the shaft and partly in the crank, pulley, etc.
(n.) An indehiscent, one-seeded fruit furnished with a wing, as the fruit of the ash and maple; a samara; -- called also key fruit.
(n.) A family of tones whose regular members are called diatonic tones, and named key tone (or tonic) or one (or eight), mediant or three, dominant or five, subdominant or four, submediant or six, supertonic or two, and subtonic or seven. Chromatic tones are temporary members of a key, under such names as " sharp four," "flat seven," etc. Scales and tunes of every variety are made from the tones of a key.
(n.) The fundamental tone of a movement to which its modulations are referred, and with which it generally begins and ends; keynote.
(n.) Fig: The general pitch or tone of a sentence or utterance.
(v. t.) To fasten or secure firmly; to fasten or tighten with keys or wedges.
Example Sentences:
(1) Community involvement is a key element of the Primary Health Care (PHC) approach, and thus an essential topic on a course for managers of Primary Health Care programmes.
(2) A key way of regaining public trust will be reforming the system of remuneration as agreed by the G20.
(3) Instead, the White House opted for a low-key approach, publishing a blogpost profiling Trinace Edwards, a brain-tumour victim who recently discovered she was eligible for Medicaid coverage.
(4) The presence of a few key residues in the amino-terminal alpha-helix of each ligand is sufficient to confer specificity to the interaction.
(5) The key warning from the Fed chair A summary of Bernanke's hearing Earlier... MPs in London quizzed the Bank of England on Libor.
(6) "Seller reports are key to identifying bad buyers and ridding them from our marketplace," says eBay.
(7) It is suggested that the low-density lipoprotein receptors in human fetal liver may play a key role in the regulation of the serum cholesterol levels during gestation.
(8) A key component of a career program should be recognition of a nurse's needs and the program should be evaluated to determine if these needs are met.
(9) As novel antibody therapeutics are developed for different malignancies and require evaluation with cells previously uncharacterized as antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC) targets, efficient description of key parameters of the assay system expedites the preclinical assessment.
(10) Meanwhile, Hunt has been accused of backtracking on a key recommendation in the official report into Mid Staffs.
(11) The safe motherhood initiative demands an intersectoral, collaborative approach to gynecology, family planning, and child health in which midwifery is the key element.
(12) Acetylcholinesterase is a key enzyme in cholinergic neurotransmission for hydrolyzing acetylcholine and has been shown to possess arylacylamidase activity in addition to esterase activity.
(13) If Lagarde had been placed under formal investigation in the Tapie case, it would have risked weakening her position and further embarrassing both the IMF and France by heaping more judicial worries on a key figure on the international stage.
(14) Four goals, four assists, and constant movement have been a key part of the team’s success.
(15) Mechanosensitive ion channels may play a key role in transducing vascular smooth muscle (VSM) stretch into active force development.
(16) But Abaaoud, the man thought to be a key planner for the group behind the Paris attacks, boasted to a niece that he had brought around 90 militants back to Europe with him.
(17) Key therapeutic questions are whether beta-lactams can safely replace aminoglycosides for the treatment of gram-negative pneumonia, and whether monotherapy or aminoglycoside and beta-lactam combination antibiotic treatment is superior.
(18) Teaching procedures then establish and build these key components to fluency.
(19) Doubts about Hinkley Point have deepened after a detailed report by HSBC’s energy analysts described eight key challenges to the project, which will be built by the state-backed French firm EDF and be part-financed by investment from China .
(20) The Lords will vote on three key amendments: • To exclude child benefit from the cap calculation (this would roughly halve the number of households affected).
Lock
Definition:
(n.) A tuft of hair; a flock or small quantity of wool, hay, or other like substance; a tress or ringlet of hair.
(n.) Anything that fastens; specifically, a fastening, as for a door, a lid, a trunk, a drawer, and the like, in which a bolt is moved by a key so as to hold or to release the thing fastened.
(n.) A fastening together or interlacing; a closing of one thing upon another; a state of being fixed or immovable.
(n.) A place from which egress is prevented, as by a lock.
(n.) The barrier or works which confine the water of a stream or canal.
(n.) An inclosure in a canal with gates at each end, used in raising or lowering boats as they pass from one level to another; -- called also lift lock.
(n.) That part or apparatus of a firearm by which the charge is exploded; as, a matchlock, flintlock, percussion lock, etc.
(n.) A device for keeping a wheel from turning.
(n.) A grapple in wrestling.
(v. t.) To fasten with a lock, or as with a lock; to make fast; to prevent free movement of; as, to lock a door, a carriage wheel, a river, etc.
(v. t.) To prevent ingress or access to, or exit from, by fastening the lock or locks of; -- often with up; as, to lock or lock up, a house, jail, room, trunk. etc.
(v. t.) To fasten in or out, or to make secure by means of, or as with, locks; to confine, or to shut in or out -- often with up; as, to lock one's self in a room; to lock up the prisoners; to lock up one's silver; to lock intruders out of the house; to lock money into a vault; to lock a child in one's arms; to lock a secret in one's breast.
(v. t.) To link together; to clasp closely; as, to lock arms.
(v. t.) To furnish with locks; also, to raise or lower (a boat) in a lock.
(v. t.) To seize, as the sword arm of an antagonist, by turning the left arm around it, to disarm him.
(v. i.) To become fast, as by means of a lock or by interlacing; as, the door locks close.
Example Sentences:
(1) A bouncy function has now been incorporated into a knee of the semi-automatic knee lock design in a pilot laboratory trial involving six patients.
(2) The only other black woman I see in the building: washing dishes behind a door that was supposed to have been locked.
(3) In contrast, 1:1 phase locking characterized the electrical correlates of the duodenal activity front.
(4) When you hear the name Jesus, is the first image that comes to mind a dewy-eyed pretty boy with flowing locks?
(5) The commonly used line-to-line reaming technique was compared to an underreaming technique using both four-fifths and one-third porous-coated anatomic medullary locking (AML) implants.
(6) Andrew and his wife Amy belong to Generation Rent, an army of millions, all locked out of home ownership in Britain.
(7) While the Spielberg of popular myth is Mr Nice Guy, Lean was known as an obsessive, cantankerous tyrant who didn't much like actors and was only truly happy locked away in the editing suite.
(8) One top Republican official told the Guardian the party has for months been locked in secret talks with TV networks about how – or whether – it will fit all the candidates onstage for the primary debates.
(9) We develop an analogy between the steric hindrance among receptors detecting randomly placed haptens and the temporary locking of a Geiger counter that has detected a radioactive decay.
(10) On Wednesday, managing director Mike Devereux also flagged that the company's future in the country was not certain if government funding was not locked in over a long period.
(11) The violence led to the temporary suspension of the council's monthly meeting with some staff at one stage locked in rooms to ensure their safety.
(12) There have been reports of difficulties with the seating and locking of the vaporisers which can cause a leak and failure of vapour delivery.
(13) Such mutations lead to a major reduction in the rate of GTP hydrolysis by the complex of ras p21 and the GTPase activating protein (GAP) and lock the protein in a growth-promoting state.
(14) He was a fixture at Trump rallies, where he met chants of “Lock her up” against Hillary Clinton with a smile.
(15) No doubt New Labour ministers would regard such moves as protectionism, locked as they are in a discredited free-market mindset.
(16) So-called "structured" savings accounts promoted heavily by banks and building societies promise savers extra interest if they lock their money away for at least five years.
(17) Palmer sought to clarify his statements on Tuesday, and said they were aimed at the company he is currently locked in a dispute with, and not the broader Chinese population.
(18) Foveal exposures that did not produce an immediately visible lesion did not produce measurable changes in VEP response lock-in time.
(19) Scream Queens is the kind of show where you discover a secret locked room in the basement in one scene and then we find out exactly what is in the room three scenes later.
(20) In a group of the MS-DB units with stable background theta bursts the typical response consisting of entrainment of the phase-locked theta cycles was changed neither by physostigmine, nor by cholinergic-blocking drugs (scopolamine and atropine).