(v. t.) To soak in a liquid; to macerate; to extract the essence of by soaking; as, to soften seed by steeping it in water. Often used figuratively.
(v. i.) To undergo the process of soaking in a liquid; as, the tea is steeping.
(n.) Something steeped, or used in steeping; a fertilizing liquid to hasten the germination of seeds.
(n.) A rennet bag.
(v. t.) Making a large angle with the plane of the horizon; ascending or descending rapidly with respect to a horizontal line or a level; precipitous; as, a steep hill or mountain; a steep roof; a steep ascent; a steep declivity; a steep barometric gradient.
(v. t.) Difficult of access; not easy reached; lofty; elevated; high.
(v. t.) Excessive; as, a steep price.
(n.) A precipitous place, hill, mountain, rock, or ascent; any elevated object sloping with a large angle to the plane of the horizon; a precipice.
Example Sentences:
(1) The dose response effect in this tumor is steep and combinations which compromise the dose of adriamycin too greatly are showing inferior results.
(2) Steep longitudinal and transverse gradients of glycogen are known to exist in the organ of Corti of the guinea pig, with preferential accumulation in the outer hair cells of the apical turns.
(3) The steep portion of the relationship between Retzius cell action potential amplitude and membrane potential extrapolated to an apparent reversal potential of -13 mV.
(4) This property of endotoxin can serve as a sensitive bioassay, although the dose-response curve is steep.
(5) With its steep hills and cobblestones, the neighbourhood of São Cristóvão in Ouro Preto isn’t an easy place to play football.
(6) Four patients with herpes zoster ophthalmicus developed peripheral corneal ulcers with steep central edges.
(7) The results showed that measurements of impression profiles and SEM photogrammetry gave the most accurate results adjacent to regions simulating steep cavity margins, whereas the profilometric technique gave erroneous results in these regions.
(8) The intensity dependence of the early ganglion cell discharge, its latency and initial impulse frequency, is shown to follow from such a waveform, assuming that 1) latency L = l + D, where l is the time it takes for the rod response linearly summed over the ganglion cell's receptive field to reach a criterion amplitude, and D is a constant delay; and 2) the initial frequency (below saturation) is proportional to the steepness of rise of the summed rod response at time l. It is shown that the intensity dependences of 1) human visual latency and 2) brightness sensation, including effects of stimulus area and duration, are accounted for by the same model.
(9) The new protocol (standardised exponential exercise protocol, STEEP) is suitable for use on either a treadmill or a bicycle ergometer.
(10) Based on the signals observed by organ absorbance spectrophotometry from two compartments with oxidases of markedly different O2 sensitivity, the mitochondria and the peroxisomes, a distribution between high O2 and zero O2 zones is postulated, an intermediate border zone of O2 concentrations between the K0,5 (O2) values being virtually absent (steep intercellular O2 gradients).
(11) A man who had been near them reached the hotel terrace first, scrambling up a steep sandy bank.
(12) Patients with steep sloping audiograms understand better and patients with a conductive hearing loss component understand less in noisy circumstances with a hearing aid.
(13) The operational values are useful in characterising the steepness of dose-incidence curves for normal tissue injury after different fractionation schedules.
(14) Scarborough council said leaving the houses standing could cause a domino-effect down the steep slope above the picturesque harbour where the explorer Captain James Cook lodged and learned his seafaring skills.
(15) It is shown that this individual exhibits approximate alignment of her photoreceptors with the center of the retinal sphere, clear evidence of side lobes on functions, and surprisingly steep SCE I functions.
(16) For cross-linked alpha alpha, however, the curve sags at temperatures somewhat below the region of principal cooperative loss of helix, the latter occurring at higher temperature but with the same steepness as in the non-cross-linked case.
(17) A reduced venous compliance (VC) and inadequate venoconstriction may impair hemodynamics during hemodialysis, the first by impairing plasma volume preservation and by inducing a steep fall in central venous pressure (CVP) during minor plasma volume loss, the second by inadequate mobilization of hemodynamically inactive blood volume.
(18) A generally similar pattern is seen in healthy controls and in patients with untreated pulmonary tuberculosis, treated leprosy, haemophilia A and chronic obstructive lung disease (COLD) patients treated with prednisolone, but the gradient of increasing CD4:CD8 ratio with depth into the dermis is significantly less steep in patients with tuberculosis, haemophilia and prednisolone-treated COLD than in the healthy controls.
(19) Some problem drugs may be recognized if they display one or more of the following characteristics: narrow therapeutic index, steep dose-effect relationship, nonlinear kinetics, variable bioavailability, and pharmacogenetically determined kinetics.
(20) Replacement of a half of Ca++ ions by Sr++ resulted in an augmentation of steepness of the dependence on sum of [Ca++] and [Sp++], and in a more prominent fall in relaxation velocity as compared with contraction velocity.
Wince
Definition:
(v. i.) To shrink, as from a blow, or from pain; to flinch; to start back.
(v. i.) To kick or flounce when unsteady, or impatient at a rider; as, a horse winces.
(n.) The act of one who winces.
(n.) A reel used in dyeing, steeping, or washing cloth; a winch. It is placed over the division wall between two wince pits so as to allow the cloth to descend into either compartment. at will.
Example Sentences:
(1) Boris winced; his presence in the house is becoming ever more marginal and Osborne is now the clear favourite to become the next leader of the Tory party.
(2) We might as well put a white cat in his lap.” The photographer asks McCluskey to hold the king up to the camera, and the press officer laughs with a wince.
(3) Even as Germany winced its way through three years of crisis, bailouts and skyrocketing national debt, openly anti-euro sentiments have remained off-limits for all mainstream parties.
(4) Tory grandees visibly winced on television as the scale of the defeat sank in - and Basildon, symbol of their salvation among Essex voters in 1992, went Labour on a 15 per cent swing.
(5) "Any politician that claims to you that they're an ordinary person is not telling you the truth," Miliband mutters, half smiling and wincing.
(6) Candidate of the day Aforementioned Lindsay candidate Fiona Scott, who laughed a little too loudly at her leader’s comment as his daughter Frances, standing right beside her father, visibly winced.
(7) He cradles a black tea, wincing every time crockery crashes in the kitchen of the backstreet London cafe we're seated in.
(8) The pizza flew, the tackles made you wince and there was no love lost between Wenger and Ferguson.
(9) We slightly wince, on behalf of those more tightly bound to laborious necessity, when we read that "to maintain one's self on this earth is not hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely", and that "by working about six weeks in a year, I could meet all the expenses of living".
(10) Yet well-meaning westerners – health experts, development workers, sustainability folk and so on – are wont to wince at the sight.
(11) One wince during this procedure could get you shunned from society.
(12) People tend to wince at the cost of having furniture reupholstered, but when you think about how long it should last (a well-upholstered chair should be good for 30 years) there's nothing throwaway about it.
(13) Neid, though, was becoming increasingly vexed by what she clearly perceived as some rough-house tactics from England, including some rather wince-inducing challenges.
(14) The balderdash quotient is high at all party conferences, but at a time like this people will wince more than ever at high-minded phrases from government ministers that disguise a very different reality.
(15) I must remind you of the seriousness of the assault and that you were arrested, not her.” Indeed, this assault was so serious that it left Ruffley’s ex-partner “wincing in obvious pain” when her friend Ward saw her afterwards.
(16) Ward, a friend of Ruffley's former partner, said the woman had "winced in obvious pain" when they hugged in greeting a few days after the incident and told of how frightened she had been of his "rage and violent behaviour".
(17) NEW WONKS Conservative Voice, a joint venture of disaffected Tory big beasts Liam Fox and David Davis, was launched with much fanfare and, no doubt, no small amount of wincing by Cameron last week.
(18) Grainger, courtesy of a hugely emotional win alongside Anna Watkins in the women's double sculls, now has a gold to add to her three previous wince-inducing silvers.
(19) He does it with a budget of £30m a year, but only £12m of that is spent on programming, he says (still enough to make commercial stations wince).
(20) Well” she begins, shifting her position and wincing, “I was playing with my son’s dinosaur, and it’s stuck.” “OK, Mrs T, but why are you in the sexual health clinic today?” I continue, somewhat bemused.