(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).
Stump
Definition:
(n.) The part of a tree or plant remaining in the earth after the stem or trunk is cut off; the stub.
(n.) The part of a limb or other body remaining after a part is amputated or destroyed; a fixed or rooted remnant; a stub; as, the stump of a leg, a finger, a tooth, or a broom.
(n.) The legs; as, to stir one's stumps.
(n.) One of the three pointed rods stuck in the ground to form a wicket and support the bails.
(n.) A short, thick roll of leather or paper, cut to a point, or any similar implement, used to rub down the lines of a crayon or pencil drawing, in shading it, or for shading drawings by producing tints and gradations from crayon, etc., in powder.
(n.) A pin in a tumbler lock which forms an obstruction to throwing the bolt, except when the gates of the tumblers are properly arranged, as by the key; a fence; also, a pin or projection in a lock to form a guide for a movable piece.
(v. t.) To cut off a part of; to reduce to a stump; to lop.
(v. t.) To strike, as the toes, against a stone or something fixed; to stub.
(v. t.) To challenge; also, to nonplus.
(v. t.) To travel over, delivering speeches for electioneering purposes; as, to stump a State, or a district. See To go on the stump, under Stump, n.
(n.) To put (a batsman) out of play by knocking off the bail, or knocking down the stumps of the wicket he is defending while he is off his allotted ground; -- sometimes with out.
(n.) To bowl down the stumps of, as, of a wicket.
(v. i.) To walk clumsily, as if on stumps.
Example Sentences:
(1) Local embolism, vertebral distal-stump embolism, the dynamics of hemorrhagic infarction and embolus-in-transit are briefly described.
(2) Nine months later, the animals were sacrificed, the esophagus and the gastric stump were removed for histologic examination.
(3) A newborn presenting with persistent umbilical stump bleeding should be screened for factor XIII deficiency when routine coagulation tests prove normal.
(4) The locations of remaining tumor were the tracheal stump in patients in whom resection was incomplete.
(5) Posterior half stumps regenerated limbs with a mean digit number of 2.7 and had a normal dorsoventral muscle pattern.
(6) Two factors influencing cellular morphology in vitro were identified in Locusta: 1) the presence of a primary neurite stump, and 2) membrane contacts between cells.
(7) This low level of binding was maintained for periods of up to 70 days, demonstrating that some STX binds to structures other than axons in denervated distal stumps.
(8) For those who can't stump up more than 5% of the agreed price, he suggests guarantor mortgages, such as that offered by Lloyds TSB.
(9) The appendix or appendix stump was visualised on 53% of the barium examinations.
(10) We describe a male infant with congenital deficiency of coagulation Factor XIII who presented in the immediate postnatal period with umbilical stump bleeding and suffered a severe intracranial hemorrhage at 2 months of age.
(11) Photograph: Peter Beaumont for the Guardian For his part the leader of Hadash, the veteran socialist party in Israel that emphasises Arab-Jewish cooperation, Odeh has now attracted a political star status most obvious on the stump in Lod on Wednesday in the repeated cries of “Ayman!” by shopkeepers and passersby keen to shake his hand or be photographed with him.
(12) In both treatments, the proximal axon stumps exhibited regenerative growth as early as 1 day after axotomy, and, by the third day, neurites had extended.
(13) Since muscle contraction ceases immediately following nerve transection, regardless of nerve stump length, the results can be ascribed to the lack of some neural influence other than nerve-evoked muscle activity.
(14) Injury to the stump of a below-knee amputation (BKA) may require revision to a higher level of amputation.
(15) Crushing the optic nerve eliminated retinopetal fibers from all regions except the cerebral stump of the optic nerve, indicating that this projection was of central origin.
(16) This is dependent upon the gap between the tendon stumps being rather small.
(17) To maintain its 30% stake the Co-op would need to stump up another £120m, increasing its already high debt levels.
(18) Vauxhall Tower Like a cigarette stubbed out by the Thames, the Vauxhall's lonely stump looks cast adrift, a piece of Pudong that's lost its way.
(19) The radiological picture of the amputation stump after osteosarcoma was reviewed in 75 cases, in which postoperative follow-up ranged from a minimum four months, to a maximum of over 12 years.
(20) The postoperative alkaline reflux gastritis is described, the consequences including the carcinoma of the gastric stump are mentioned.