(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).
Rank
Definition:
(superl.) Luxuriant in growth; of vigorous growth; exuberant; grown to immoderate height; as, rank grass; rank weeds.
(superl.) Raised to a high degree; violent; extreme; gross; utter; as, rank heresy.
(superl.) Causing vigorous growth; producing luxuriantly; very rich and fertile; as, rank land.
(superl.) Strong-scented; rancid; musty; as, oil of a rank smell; rank-smelling rue.
(superl.) Strong to the taste.
(superl.) Inflamed with venereal appetite.
(adv.) Rankly; stoutly; violently.
(n. & v.) A row or line; a range; an order; a tier; as, a rank of osiers.
(n. & v.) A line of soldiers ranged side by side; -- opposed to file. See 1st File, 1 (a).
(n. & v.) Grade of official standing, as in the army, navy, or nobility; as, the rank of general; the rank of admiral.
(n. & v.) An aggregate of individuals classed together; a permanent social class; an order; a division; as, ranks and orders of men; the highest and the lowest ranks of men, or of other intelligent beings.
(n. & v.) Degree of dignity, eminence, or excellence; position in civil or social life; station; degree; grade; as, a writer of the first rank; a lawyer of high rank.
(n. & v.) Elevated grade or standing; high degree; high social position; distinction; eminence; as, a man of rank.
(v. t.) To place abreast, or in a line.
(v. t.) To range in a particular class, order, or division; to class; also, to dispose methodically; to place in suitable classes or order; to classify.
(v. t.) To take rank of; to outrank.
(v. i.) To be ranged; to be set or disposed, as in a particular degree, class, order, or division.
(v. i.) To have a certain grade or degree of elevation in the orders of civil or military life; to have a certain degree of esteem or consideration; as, he ranks with the first class of poets; he ranks high in public estimation.
Example Sentences:
(1) Treatment termination due to lack of efficacy or combined insufficient therapeutic response and toxicity proved to be influenced by the initial disease activity and by the rank order of prescription.
(2) Despite a 10-year deadline to have the same number of ethnic minority officers in the ranks as in the populations they serve, the target was missed and police are thousands of officers short.
(3) Measures of average and cumulative rank were used to augment tests of the significance of correlations between different indicators.
(4) The programs are written in Fortran and are implemented on a Rank Xerox Sigma 6 computer.
(5) Significant differences in the pharmacological characteristics of the alpha 2 adrenoceptor were observed between the tissues with reference to both absolute drug affinities as well as rank order of drug potency.
(6) While superheroes like “superman” (21st in SplashData’s 2014 rankings) and “batman” (24th) may be popular choices for passwords, the results if they are cracked could be anything other than super – and users will only have themselves to blame.
(7) This analysis is based on a ranking of neighbourhoods according to the participation of young people in higher education.
(8) When histamine (5 micrograms) was injected into three different levels of the ventricular system, the magnitude and duration of the resulting increases in plasma epinephrine and glucose were in the following rank order: the third ventricle greater than aqueduct much greater than fourth ventricle.
(9) The rank order of potency of the peptides tested was VIP greater than rat (r) peptide histidine isoleucine = human (h) PHI greater than rGRF greater than bovine GRF = porcine PHI = VIP-(10-28) greater than hGRF greater than secretin greater than apamin greater than glucagon.
(10) In the latter case, the studies have resulted in a ranking of processes and treatment methods to protect the environment.
(11) Cefuzoname seems to be among the middle ranks of beta-lactam agents as far as penetration rate is concerned; however, when its potent antibacterial activity and broad spectrum are taken into account, the concentrations in CSF in patients with meningitis seem worth examining.
(12) They include two leading Republican hopefuls for the presidential race in 2016, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio; three of them enjoy A+ rankings from the NRA and a further eight are listed A. Rand Paul of Kentucky The junior senator's penchant for filibusters became famous during his nearly 13-hour speech against the use unmanned drones, and he is one of three senators who sent an initial missive to Reid , warning him of another verbose round.
(13) Using an explicit process, the Oregon Health Services Commission has completed the ranking of 714 condition-treatment pairs.
(14) Autonomy, sense of accomplishment and time spent in patient care ranked as the top three factors contributing to job satisfaction.
(15) On guinea-pig lung strip the rank order of potency was U-46619 greater than Wy17186 much greater than PGF2 alpha greater than PGE2 and responses to all agonists tested were blocked by AH19437 but not by SC-19220.
(16) In the UK, George Osborne used this to his advantage, claiming "Britain faces the disaster of having its international credit rating downgraded" even after Moody's ranked UK debt as "resilient".
(17) The eight senators, including the incoming ranking member Mark Warner of Virginia, wrote to Barack Obama to request he declassify relevant intelligence on the election.
(18) Hence, a priori haplotyping cannot exclude a particular CF mutation, but in combination with population genetic data, enables mutations to be ranked by decreasing probability.
(19) The rank order of potencies of the four AEDs was: (a) in young: CBZ > PHT > PhB > VPA; (b) in adult: CBZ > PhB > PHT > VPA.
(20) Patients clinically evaluated as effective tended to be so pathologically as well, as shown by Spearman's rank correlation test which gave a significant correlation between the clinical and pathological scores.