(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).
Shift
Definition:
(v. t.) To divide; to distribute; to apportion.
(v. t.) To change the place of; to move or remove from one place to another; as, to shift a burden from one shoulder to another; to shift the blame.
(v. t.) To change the position of; to alter the bearings of; to turn; as, to shift the helm or sails.
(v. t.) To exchange for another of the same class; to remove and to put some similar thing in its place; to change; as, to shift the clothes; to shift the scenes.
(v. t.) To change the clothing of; -- used reflexively.
(v. t.) To put off or out of the way by some expedient.
(v. t.) The act of shifting.
(v. t.) The act of putting one thing in the place of another, or of changing the place of a thing; change; substitution.
(v. t.) Something frequently shifted; especially, a woman's under-garment; a chemise.
(v. t.) The change of one set of workmen for another; hence, a spell, or turn, of work; also, a set of workmen who work in turn with other sets; as, a night shift.
(v. t.) In building, the extent, or arrangement, of the overlapping of plank, brick, stones, etc., that are placed in courses so as to break joints.
(v. t.) A breaking off and dislocation of a seam; a fault.
(v. t.) A change of the position of the hand on the finger board, in playing the violin.
Example Sentences:
(1) At 36 h postsurgery, RBCs were examined by 23Na-NMR by using dysprosium tripolyphosphate as a chemical shift reagent.
(2) Changes in cardiac adenosine triphosphate (ATP), phosphocreatine (PCr) and inorganic phosphate (Pi) were followed and intracellular pH (pHi) was estimated from the chemical shift of Pi.
(3) Both condemn the treatment of Ibrahim, whose supposed offence appears to have shifted over time, from fabricating a defamatory story to entering a home without permission to misleading an interviewee for an article that was never published.
(4) When Sprague-Dawley-S9 or Wistar-S9 were used for activation, the enhancement of IQ mutagenesis by tryptamine shifted to inhibition at tryptamine concentrations > 40 microM, with Sprague-Dawley-S9, and > 20 microM, with Wistar-S9.
(5) In a control study an inert stereoisomer, d-propranolol, did not block the ocular dominance shift.
(6) However, a highly significant upward shift of the proliferating cell compartment was observed in the cancer group, resulting in a specific modification of the [3H]TDR labeling pattern in 6 of 17 specimens.
(7) This transient paresis was accompanied by a dramatic fall in the MFCV concomitant with a shift of the power spectrum to the lower frequencies.
(8) These results indicate that during IPPV the increased Pcv attenuates the pressure gradient for venous return and decreases CO and that the compensatory increase in Psf is caused by a blood shift from unstressed to stressed blood volume.
(9) Sequence specific binding of protein extracts from 13 different yeast species to three oligonucleotide probes and two points mutants derived from Saccharomyces cerevisiae DNA binding proteins were tested using mobility shift assays.
(10) The method is implemented with a digital non-causal (zero-phase shift) filter, based on the convolution with a finite impulse response, to make the computation time compatible with the use of low-cost microcomputers.
(11) Noise exposure and demographic data applicable to the United States, and procedures for predicting noise-induced permanent threshold shift (NIPTS) and nosocusis, were used to account for some 8.7 dB of the 13.4 dB average difference between the hearing levels at high frequencies for otologically and noise screened versus unscreened male ears; (this average difference is for the average of the hearing levels at 3000, 4000, and 6000 Hz, average for the 10th, 50th, and 90th percentiles, and ages 20-65 years).
(12) In the process, the DfE's definition of extremism has shifted from actual bomb-throwers to religious conservatives.
(13) Volume measurements were made in 26 patients to determine tissue loss and volume shifting by ROI.
(14) The data collection scheme for the scanner uses multiple rotations of a linearly shifted, asymmetric fan beam permitting user-defined variable resolution.
(15) Immediately prior to and at maximal workloads, carbon monoxide shifted into extravascular spaces and returned to the vascular space within five minutes after exercise stopped.
(16) While the correlations between speed and accuracy reversed over time, the abnormal vision group began and ended at the most extreme levels, having undergone a significantly more radical shift in this regard.
(17) Within the high-SR or medium-SR groups, the fibers with the lowest thresholds had the largest threshold shifts.
(18) NPR reported that investigators have not found telltale signs associated with Islamist radicalization , such as a change in mosques or abrupt shifts in behavior or family associations.
(19) Of the 88 evening-shift cardiac arrests during this time, one specific nurse (Nurse 14) was the care giver for 57 (65%).
(20) Moments later, explosive charges blasted free two tungsten blocks, to shift the balance of the probe so it could fly itself to a prearranged landing spot .