(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).
Vandalize
Definition:
Example Sentences:
(1) "The problem in the community is that the elderly who live on their own on ground floors are frightened to open the windows because of vandalism and burglary," he says.
(2) There could be no doubt who these deliberate vandals were, either: unelected members of the House of Lords, and the 48% of the country who failed to vote for Brexit.
(3) Tory toffs repelling undesirable immigrants, providing better schools, using welfare reform as a pathway to work, clearing vandals, yobs and drunks from the streets and standing up to our masters in Brussels would be very popular, and the word would soon be forgotten.
(4) Will Francis, director, Vandal London Facebook Twitter Pinterest Will has worked with a variety of global brands including Net-a-Porter, Samsung, Spotify, Microsoft, Warner Music and Nike Foundation to innovate in social media, something he’s been doing since his days as editor of MySpace in the mid-late noughties.
(5) They know the truth, as we did on Saturday, that the march really could be the start of a fightback against economic and social vandalism.
(6) Vandals have spray painted the word “evil” across a far north Queensland mosque – an act the local mayor describes as deeply saddening.
(7) "We must make sure that those who want to advertise [with] women's images in the city can do so without fear of vandalism and defacement of billboards or buses showing women," he has said.
(8) Clegg also defended the right of local authorities to consider evicting the families of vandals and looters but stressed that the issue had to be dealt with carefully and sensitively.
(9) A cost-benefit analysis indicated that potential savings, primarily in reduced vandalism but also in reduced police and fire costs, greatly exceeded the cost of mounting the program.
(10) In response to Rousseff's promises and concerns about the vandalism that followed clashes with police, the organisers plan to set new guidelines for the protests.
(11) In the micro-economics of obscure music promotion the vandalism of a cloth cyclops dispenser could be the point at which your break-even point disappears over the event horizon.
(12) The chief of public security said that such acts of vandalism did not come under the definition of freedom of expression protected by the law.
(13) Cemetery remains exposed through vandalism or natural phenomena are frequently brought to the attention of law enforcement agents or medical examiners.
(14) There’s no graffiti, no vandalism and scarcely any crime.
(15) I can already feel it piling into the garbage segment of my political memory, so that one day in the future, Javid’s oaths will have become I, the undersigned, do hereby promise to defend John Major’s cones around Theresa May’s racist vans , protect them from the vandalism of ridicule, because that is the British way; to tolerate views you disagree with, including this stupid oath.
(16) Being a toddler, she toddled a bit; she knocked over a bottle of Dettol spray, and in a staggering act of pre-school vandalism, broke the nozzle.
(17) This violence and vandalism is disgraceful criminal behaviour.
(18) Public school vandalism was investigated with a sample of students in 7th through 12th grade.
(19) "This behaviour was criminal behaviour," said Johnson of the recent riots – but in the past his attitude to vandalism has been more nuanced.
(20) They have been reviled as vandals, hooligans and lunatics.