(v. i.) To crack; to make a sharp, abrupt noise to chink.
(v. i.) To speak affectedly.
(n.) A petty contrivance; a toy; a plaything; a knickknack.
(n.) A readiness in performance; aptness at doing something; skill; facility; dexterity.
(n.) Something performed, or to be done, requiring aptness and dexterity; a trick; a device.
Example Sentences:
(1) His office - with a floor-to-ceiling glass wall offering views over a Bradford suburb and distant moors - is devoid of knick-knacks or memorabilia.
(2) For one day only, the criteria for success shift from the ability to do long division to the ability to do the long jump, a knack for reciting facts to a knack for running fast.
(3) Garfield has a history of making interesting choices and a knack for using his edgy watchfulness to steal scenes from some of the best actors in the business.
(4) Doyle may be knacked too … 12.47pm GMT 30 min: Leeds are bossing this and playing some wonderful football.
(5) He has a knack for always knowing the right thing to say to them.
(6) Abbott appeared to have the same knack until he got into government, after which time his lack of ideas and direction have seen his party – and especially his cabinet – crumble.
(7) Bayern, even with 10 men, had an unerring knack of keeping the ball.
(8) Knack There were hidden areas he could smash open, collecting components that could be made into helpful items – such as one that harvests energy from enemies that could be used for special attacks.
(9) It was not the worst performance of Chelsea’s season by any measure and they gave everything during their late search for an equaliser, but they have lost their knack of recovering from going behind and Marko Arnautovic’s goal, eight minutes into the second half, was decisive.
(10) Young-gamer-friendly The Knack is a simple but imaginative action-adventure, while InFamous: Second Son , a third-person superpowers-themed title, really looked a step ahead of the current platforms, presenting a glorious and inventive spectacle.
(11) And on those occasions when the chefs can’t cook up a compromise, the EU has a knack for defusing a crisis by “kicking the can down the road” or some other variant of delaying a day of reckoning or fudging a fundamental problem.
(12) Sturridge, nonetheless, has a wonderful knack of not becoming dispirited.
(13) Louis van Gaal’s knack for escapism has been a pronounced feature of the season but on a wild night in east London, when West Ham United yelled farewell to their home of 112 years, the Manchester United manager could not summon the trick when he needed it so sorely.
(14) Updated at 4.45pm BST 3.44pm BST 3.37pm BST Meet the team Left to right: Gary (the driver), Benji (knee-knacked blogger), Hollis (the photographer) 3.24pm BST 3.10pm BST Chicago playlist While we're waiting for Benji and the team to get their first coffee rush going, let's spin a few tunes courtesy of our resident DJ @jaimeblack at Dynasty Podcasts .
(15) I suppose that in my highly anxious 20s I developed a knack for viewing my future with the lowest possible expectations of happiness.
(16) Long known for its knack for borrowing from the catwalk and repurposing for the high street in a more wearable way, Zara’s success also relies on trial and error.
(17) The arrogant have a knack of papering over chasms in their arguments.
(18) The knack is to find your own inspiration, and take it on a journey to create work that is personal and revealing.
(19) And that is true, but as far the popular perception of the world is concerned, Argentina is celebrated only on account of its knack of producing, generation after generation, great footballers and teams.
(20) Tom Watson is a formidable political operator with an uncanny knack for being at the centre of Labour party dramas.
Plaything
Definition:
(n.) A thing to play with; a toy; anything that serves to amuse.
Example Sentences:
(1) The idea that abortion – the right to control one's own body – is but a plaything for male politicians, such as Jeremy Hunt, to signal their credentials is not new.
(2) Business leaders worried about what this would do to our international reputation, what it said about our consistency, whether or not it made the peerage system look like a political plaything.
(3) Abbott said he would fight the leadership challenge because Australia needed “strong and stable government” and the prime ministership was “not a prize or a plaything to be demanded”.
(4) What are the life-enhancing functions that will compel us to pay for these new playthings?
(5) The New York Daily News – neglected plaything of forgotten Canadian media magnate Mort Zuckerman – has also flipped and endorsed Mitt Romney in this election.
(6) And to top it all, this amazing journey – from plaything to instrument of social change – seems to have happened in a matter of months.
(7) The Troika is like a cat with a mouse, tormenting then eventually killing its plaything While ballymichael flags up the political hurdles that leaders are struggling to overcome: Germany is in the middle of its budget ratification process, and Schäuble yesterday was understandably being rhetorically kicked all around the Bundestag Chamber for not balancing the budget, even when the circumstances are so favourable, by the SPD and Greens.
(8) Depending on your perspective, it is abstract or concrete, vague or meaningful, something to undermine or nurture, a fair or an unfair plaything of politicians and others, and so forth.
(9) Thames Water, a plaything of private equity, with its ultimate parent company domiciled in "tax-efficient" Luxembourg, is loaded with debt – and only able to build the planned super-sewer with government guarantees because it has so over-distributed its profits as dividends.
(10) In children 0-4 years of age household and child furniture, constructional features of the house and corrosives, hot liquids and heating equipment were the most common products causing accidents, whereas in children 5-15 years of age playthings and sports equipment as well as constructional features of the house were involved in a higher percentage of accidents.
(11) Nothing enrages some men – for it was always men – more than the prospect of a woman in their toy box, sharing their playthings.
(12) This case is political and unfortunately my clients have been held hostage, and they have become playthings for the government.
(13) In the 1970's, with no such restrictions, the New York Cosmos prompted an unsustainable arms race in the NASL when media mogul Steve Ross ran the club as a plaything and brought the likes of Pele, Beckenbauer and Chinaglia — and crucially titles — to New York City.
(14) King said the uber-wealthy's choice of playthings to splash their cash on has remained pretty constant with holiday homes, superyachts and private jets.
(15) If you don't respect yourself, if you don't project your own authority, how do you expect not to end up a plaything of the bloviators and the rent seekers and people who would move you about like a piece on a chessboard?
(16) The Scottish government is not a plaything for bored royals on a mission,” Graham Smith, the group’s chief executive, told the Herald.
(17) It turns them into our playthings, always-accessible automatons onto whom we can project all our fantasies.
(18) Is it the free-at-last nation which is "no longer a plaything of the US military adventure," as one Labour MP put it on Friday.
(19) Like many of the world’s masterpieces, it’s now the private plaything of the vastly rich.
(20) • Robots make great toys too, and CES was jam-packed full of tech-infused playthings headed for this year's Christmas lists