1*a boy who won't stand up for himself becomes a man who can't stand up to anything ,I wonder, is that what you've become?
1*comment
if someone never fight for himself, will he become the one won't fight for anything?
1.It wasn't until Aflatoon startled me with a bark that I realized how quiet the room had become.
1.cocker
cock‧er span‧iel /ˌkɒkə ˈspænjəl $ ˌkɑːkər-/ noun [countable]
a dog with long ears and long silky fur
Examples from the Corpus
cocker spaniel
• He would spirit me away, to a home on the Mainland complete with plush carpet and a cocker spaniel pup.9
• However, my cocker spaniel rates it top of the list for smell.
• The cocker spaniel puppy stopped abruptly, then eyed the spinning leaf overhead.
2. Come.There is a way to be good again.
1*comment
人非圣贤熟能无过，知错就改善莫大焉。
2.bleary-eyed
blear‧y /ˈblɪəri $ ˈblɪri/ (also bleary-eyed) adjective
unable to see very clearly, because you are tired or have been crying
Steve emerged from his room, unshaven and bleary-eyed.
—blearily adverb
—bleariness noun [uncountable]
Examples from the Corpus
bleary
• A messenger from the mill woke the bleary-eyed Thompson at 3:00 a.m.
• For most people breakfast is a time to renew contact with the world, often through bleary eyes at best.
• I checked the clock, squinting through bleary eyes.
• Alexander wakes with a start, gives a visitor a perplexed, somewhat bleary stare, then melts blissfully back into slumber.
• We pull on our coats with bleary yanks as the alcohol works its universal spell, and bump out the door.
5.broomstick
broom‧stick /ˈbruːmˌstɪk, ˈbrʊm-/ noun [countable]
a broom with a long handle and thin sticks tied at one end that a witch is supposed to fly on in stories
Examples from the Corpus
broomstick
• An hour later, a broomstick settled gently on the lawn.
• She once bared her backside to a crowd and once measured the private parts of three sailors with a broomstick.
• It was probably this practice that gave rise to the popular image of witches flying on broomsticks.
• Mildred took her suitcase from the back of the broomstick which was hovering politely, waiting for the next command.
• He seized the broomstick between his strong teeth and began to leap about, trying to wrest it from Angela's grasp.
• The broomstick bounded forward and soon left the rooks behind.
• The broomstick dipped and then dived towards a dark wood of tall elms and flew over the tops.
• The broomstick dipped its twiggy end and soared upward like a rocket.
6.soliloquies
so‧lil‧o‧quy /səˈlɪləkwi/ noun (plural soliloquies) [countable, uncountable]
a speech in a play in which a character, usually alone on the stage, talks to himself or herself so that the audience knows their thoughts → monologue
—soliloquize /-kwaɪz/ verb [intransitive]
Examples from the Corpus
soliloquy
• The second actor, the accused, immediately begins a soliloquy of defence.
• Terentia goes offstage, and in a soliloquy, Dycarbas explains his actions.
• We should hope that Hughes, having taken his soliloquy, will one day transcribe more of these asides.
• My own soliloquy, my own trial came with that offer.
• One way of doing this is to use the soliloquy or aside, such flexible resources on the Elizabethan stage.
• But Pauline Daniels has created a whole new interpretation of the uproarious soliloquy.
7.transistor
• The advent of the transistor brought rapid expansion in set ownership.
Related topics: Electrical, Broadcasting
tran‧sis‧tor /trænˈzɪstə $ -ər/ noun [countable]
1 a small piece of electronic equipment in radios, televisions etc that controls the flow of electricity
2 a transistor radio
Examples from the Corpus
transistor
• The modular architecture will integrate 10m transistors.
• The Puerto Rican sweepers carried transistors playing Latin music.
• Furthermore, the availability of cheap transistors makes obtaining maximum power gain through each transistor rather unimportant in any case.
• RISCs also have fewer transistors on a chip than CISCs making RISCs cheaper to produce.
• More stories, more coffee and another try with Pete's transistor radio.
• The wrappings had come off: it was a shattered transistor radio.
• This can easily be obtained with small signal transistors in the output stage.
8.futility
fu‧tile /ˈfjuːtaɪl $ -tl/ adjective
actions that are futile are useless because they have no chance of being successful SYN pointless OPP worthwhile
a futile attempt/effort
a futile attempt to save the paintings from the flames
My efforts to go back to sleep proved futile.
it is futile to do something
It was futile to continue the negotiations.
—futility /fjuːˈtɪləti/ noun [uncountable]
This sums up Owen’s thoughts on the futility of war.
Examples from the Corpus
futile
• All efforts to save the child proved futile.
• Until attitudes at work are changed, attempts to improve performance are likely to prove futile.
• But a sense of apathy arises from the feeling that life is pointless and futile.
• It was all so sad, so depressing, so futile.
• The attempt to change his mind proved futile.
• Demonstrators condemned the summit as a futile and fruitless exercise.
• Kevin made one last futile attempt to persuade Sandra to go with him, then left.
• The goal is not to punish the rebels, but to convince them that it is futile to resist.
• The point to recognize is, of course, that it is futile to waste time classifying studies into neat little boxes.
a futile attempt/effort
• These are the remains of unfortunate wretches driven to kill themselves in a futile attempt to escape the torments of the Castle.
• They showed no qualms in spending £3 billion in a futile attempt to prop up the Pound.
• Sundays he slept even later than usual, in a futile effort to avoid the day.
• Minutes later a team of paramedics began a futile effort to revive the boy
1*
imitate
All efforts to save the tiger proved futile.
9.crunching
3 → crunch (the) numbers
→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
crunch
• He drank his orange juice and crunched a half burnt piece of toast.
• Jill was reading the paper, crunching a raw carrot as she read.
• We walked along in silence, the snow crunching beneath our feet.
• No, the sound of crunching from the hallway confirmed that Holmes was having a remote control snack.
• Kids were crunching graham crackers and drinking juice.
• He staggered round the rear of the couch, feet crunching in plaster, and sat down.
• The Don Eusebio crunched into the Zamboanga wharf at noon, four hours behind schedule.
• She popped a fragment of biscuit into her mouth and crunched it primly with her front teeth.
• Miguel, crunching on a mouthful of chips, wiped the cheese from his beard.
• The room was lit by a red light from the burning houses behind it as Anne crunched over broken crockery and plaster.
• They crunch those numbers with their calculators and spreadsheets.
• Broken window glass crunched under foot.
From Longman Business Dictionary
crunch /krʌntʃ/ verb
crunch (the) numbers to do very complicated calculations on large amounts of DATA (=information stored on a computer) in order to find out about something
Media buyers have to know what’s going on, not just how to crunch numbers.
→ see also cash crunch, credit crunch, supply crunch
→ See Verb table
crunch1 /krʌntʃ/ noun
1 [singular] a noise like the sound of something being crushed
The only sound was the crunch of tyres on gravel.
2 [countable, singular] American English a difficult situation caused by a lack of something, especially money or time
Three new teachers were hired to help ease the crunch.
cash/budget/financial etc crunch
Cost cutting had enabled the organization to survive a previous cash crunch.
3 → the crunch
4 [countable] an exercise in which you lie on your back and lift your head and shoulders off the ground to make your stomach muscles strong SYN sit-up
Examples from the Corpus
crunch
• First though it's rugby and crunch time in the Courage League tomorrow.
• At crunch time the team really pulled together.
• My footsteps made a satisfactory crunch on a gravel path and I was aware at once that the satyr's footsteps had halted.
• Millions of otherwise serviceable computers today are suffering from space crunch.
• While that supply crunch has eased, prices are still benefiting to some extent, traders say.
• Actually, the crunch did come, and the liberals never lifted a finger to save us.
• I heard the crunch of footsteps on gravel road outside.
• If it comes to the crunch, going in would seem to me the lesser evil.
• There was the crunch of his feet rapidly moving away over the snow and she felt her tense muscles relax.
cash/budget/financial etc crunch
• In the short term, next week's budget crunch is more like a toy train crash rather than the real thing.
• But until the budget crunches of the early nineties, no administrator ever threatened to fire them.
• The cash crunch also prevented the family from fully stocking its remaining stores.
• Despite this cash crunch, Simpson may yet find a way to at least postpone payment of his debts to the plaintiffs.
Related topics: Colours & sounds
crunch2 verb
1 [intransitive] to make a sound like something being crushed
Their boots crunched loudly on the frozen snow.
2 [intransitive always + adverb/preposition, transitive] to eat hard food in a way that makes a noise
crunch on
The dog was crunching on a bone.
10.nonchalantly
• A previously nonchalant world media took notice.
non‧cha‧lant /ˈnɒnʃələnt $ ˌnɑːnʃəˈlɑːnt/ adjective
behaving calmly and not seeming interested in anything or worried about anything
‘Has he got a girlfriend?’ Jill asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
—nonchalance noun [uncountable]
—nonchalantly adverb
He smiled nonchalantly.
Examples from the Corpus
nonchalant
• When Peter came in, she glanced up, trying to appear nonchalant.
• All her energies were devoted to appearing in the eyes of others as nonchalant.
• Hoomey stood up, trying to look nonchalant.
• Perkins was nonchalant about being chosen.
• The idea of staying in Oregon was beginning to appeal to her, but Roy was nonchalant about it.
• Well, if he does, he's pretty nonchalant about it.
• a nonchalant attitude
• He looked nonchalant enough as he strolled along the Bayswater Road, but inwardly Creed was a mess of nerves.
• "I'm sorry I'm so late. Have you been waiting long?" he asked. She gave a nonchalant shrug.
• Just around the block, swinging his arms with nonchalant vehemence.
11.vendors
vend‧or /ˈvendə $ -ər/ noun [countable]
1 someone who sells things, especially on the street
newspaper vendor/ice cream etc vendor
He bought a copy from a newspaper vendor.
the shouts of street vendors
2 formal or law someone who is selling something
leading software vendors
Examples from the Corpus
vendor
• The official reason was that I accepted a gift from a vendor, something which I was told violated company policy.
• a computer vendor
• a hot-dog vendor
• Outside the theatre, there was a row of flower vendors.
• Frank stopped to buy the evening paper from a news vendor.
• Flags sold by street vendors fluttered in the crowd of about 5,000.
• In addition, the purchaser may ask the vendor to warrant the certificate of title.
• Ideally the purchaser would wish to have the vendor negotiate actively with the purchaser on an exclusive basis during an initial period.
• The risk to the purchaser in this solution is that the vendor may still wish to pursue debtors.
From Longman Business Dictionary
vend‧or /ˈvendə-ər/ noun [countable] formal
someone who is selling something, especially a house or a piece of land SYN SELLER
House sales could dry up as vendors refuse to accept drastic price cuts.
leading software vendors
12.carpets
car‧pet1 /ˈkɑːpɪt $ ˈkɑːr-/ S2 W3 noun
1 [countable, uncountable] heavy woven material for covering floors or stairs, or a piece of this material → carpeting, rug
My bedroom carpet is green.
All the rooms had fitted carpets (=carpets cut to fit the shape of the rooms).
2 → a carpet of something
3 → be/get called on the carpet
→ magic carpet, → sweep/brush something under the carpet at sweep1(15)
COLLOCATIONS
ADJECTIVES/NOUN + CARPET
a bedroom/living-room etc carpet
The bedroom carpet was cream.
a stair carpet
We need a new stair carpet.
a fitted carpet (=cut to fit a room, and fixed to the floor)
Do you prefer rugs or a fitted carpet?
a wall-to-wall carpet (=a fitted carpet)
Every room in the house had thick wall-to-wall carpets.
a plush carpet (=thick and soft)
I love hotels with plush carpets.
thick
The thick carpet felt warm under her feet.
threadbare/worn (=very thin and in bad condition)
It was a dingy room with a threadbare carpet.
VERBS
fit/lay a carpet (=cut it to fit a room and fix it to the floor)
Will it cost extra to have the carpet fitted?
Examples from the Corpus
carpet
• The highlight of the sale was a carpet designed by Morris that sold for $ 180,000.
• Two floors up, the red-headed woman lay face-down dead on her own bedroom carpet.
• He unrolled a bit of green carpet and laid out a ring made of red and white rounds of painted wood.
• I had no curtains, no carpets, because I was afraid of fire.
• A true cat prefers to sharpen his claws on authentic imported oriental carpets, not cheap imitation knock-offs.
• The parents hugged their youngsters, took them on to their laps, formed a circle on the carpet and joined in singing.
• Rather than the carpets, curtains and video, this refers to the quality of relationships which should exist between parents and children.
fitted carpets
• If fitted carpets are to be moved, they will need to be prepared in advance.
• Walls in dark, warm colours, with rich fitted carpets or traditional rugs make for a quietly splendid effect.
Related topics: Household
carpet2 verb [transitive]
1 to cover a floor with carpet
The building has been carpeted throughout.
2 especially British English informal to talk in an angry way to someone because they have done something wrong
be carpeted for something
Top officers were carpeted for bullying younger officers.
3 literary if leaves, flowers etc carpet the ground, they cover it in a thick layer
be carpeted with something
The whole garden was carpeted with daffodils.
Grammar
Carpet is usually passive.
→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
carpet
• It was clean and quiet, carpeted and air-conditioned, and the students were gathered at six round tables.
• Many well known buildings have been carpeted from these looms.
• The hall was carpeted in a depressing shade of green.
• Middlesex have twice had to carpet Ramprakash this season after astonishing flare-ups and another incident went unpunished.
• Leaving by a window on the stairs, I was able to avoid the mud that carpeted the ground floor.
• Nowadays you can carpet your whole house and pay nothing for six months.
be carpeted with something
• They were carpeted with a faded red and blue runner held in place with brass stair rods and rings.
• The floor of the wide valley was carpeted with hummocky grass.
• Although the outskirts of the forest were carpeted with pine-needles, Kali led me higher and deeper into the trees.
• In spring, the churchyard is carpeted with snowdrops and primroses.
13.diesel
die‧sel /ˈdiːzəl/ noun
1 [uncountable] a type of heavy oil used instead of petrol in engines, especially in trucks, buses, and trains
a 1.9 litre diesel engine
diesel car/truck etc
2 [countable] informal a vehicle that uses diesel
Examples from the Corpus
diesel
• Diesel sales continued to rise with more than 41 % of all Mercedes-Benz cars now equipped with diesel engines.
• Off on the freeway I hear a diesel coming, shifting down as the hill steepens.
• It will have roughly the performance of a diesel.
• a diesel truck
• The cab control car of a commuter train being pushed from the rear collided head-on with an Amtrak diesel locomotive.
• And 86 to 90 percent comes from vehicle exhaust, evenly divided between diesel and gasoline engines.
• Except for the new diesel engines, the trains date back to 1954.
• I would love to test the same rig with a turbocharged diesel engine.
• Yet diesel gets off easily when it comes to pollution controls.
diesel car/truck etc
• That's like putting kerosene in a diesel car, says Mr Hamilton.
• It's clearly one of the very best diesel cars around.
• In addition to better economy, diesel cars use cheaper fuel and are no less environmentally-friendly than petrol-engined models fitted with catalytic converters.
• Because many diesel trucks travel across state lines and are registered outside Arizona, they are harder to regulate than gasoline-powered vehicles.
• But how many diesel cars are fitted with catalysts?
• A trawl I made through three small-ad market place papers yielded around four pages of diesel cars per 300-400 page issue.
• Most of it comes on diesel trucks.
• There was a social stigma attached to diesel car ownership, too.
14.garrulous
gar‧ru‧lous /ˈɡærələs/ adjective
always talking a lot SYN talkative
Ian isn’t normally this garrulous!
—garrulously adverb
—garrulousness noun [uncountable]
Examples from the Corpus
garrulous
• And now that it was all over, Mr Linley became quite garrulous.
• Dave, garrulous, a bit tipsy, was a natural raconteur.
• From being a painfully shy, diffident recluse, he suddenly metamorphosed into a garrulous and sometimes painfully overbearing extrovert.
• They represent instead the definition of a garrulous efficiency in service of a self-destructive goal of global domination.
• If I have any suggestions, I shall put them with garrulous hesitation and a suitable air of diffidence.
• a garrulous young man
15.interlaced
in‧ter‧laced /ˌɪntəˈleɪst $ -ər-/ adjective
things that are interlaced are joined together, with parts of the one thing going over or around parts of the other
patterns of interlaced squares
—interlace verb [intransitive, transitive]
17.intersected
in‧ter‧sect /ˌɪntəˈsekt $ -ər-/ verb
1 [intransitive, transitive] if two lines or roads intersect, they meet or go across each other
2 [transitive] to divide an area with several lines, roads etc
The plain is intersected by a network of canals.
Grammar
Intersect is usually passive in this meaning.
→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
intersect
• Venus's surface is intersected by a network of ridges and valleys.
18.intricately
in‧tri‧cate /ˈɪntrɪkət/ adjective
containing many small parts or details that all work or fit together → complex
intricate patterns
see thesaurus at complicated
—intricately adverb
intricately woven fabric
Examples from the Corpus
intricate
• a pair of intricate beaded earrings
• Lasers are used to cut intricate designs in wood.
• intricate patterns of coloured marble
• The farmers use an intricate system of drainage canals.
• the intricate workings of a watch
19.creaky
creak /kriːk/ verb [intransitive]
if something such as a door, wooden floor, old bed, or stair creaks, it makes a long high noise when someone opens it, walks on it, sits on it etc
The floorboards creaked as she walked across the room.
The door creaked open.
see thesaurus at sound
—creak noun [countable]
→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
creak
• Listen with the ears of psychohistory, and you will hear the creaking.
• In the hall the flooboards creaked and the walls were damp.
• Meanwhile, that part of the building shifted, rising and falling with the seasons, and the floors creaked constantly.
• Elsewhere in the financial system, the creaking noises are getting louder.
• Down the street a gate creaked open then snapped shut.
• The key clicked inside the lock and the door creaked open.
• Then the gate creaked, setting off a drumroll in his heart.
• Old panelling, creaking stairways and sloping floors remain.
• The F2B creaked through a 180-degree turn and began photographing another strip.
• The sky was clear, the stars were beautiful and the snow creaked underfoot.
20.bum rap
a bum/bad rap
especially American English informal unfair treatment or punishment
Cleveland always gets a bum rap in the press.
→ rap
Examples from the Corpus
a bum/bad rap
• She said social programs of the 1960s have gotten a bad rap in the 1990s.
• They got me on a bum rap.
• Yalta's bad name was in some ways a bum rap.
21.aptness
apt /æpt/ adjective
1 → be apt to do something
2 exactly right for a particular situation or purpose SYN appropriate
‘Love at first sight’ is a very apt description of how he felt when he saw her.
apt for
The punishment should be apt for the crime.
3 → an apt pupil/student
—aptness noun [uncountable]
Examples from the Corpus
apt
• Gibson refers to NARA as an organization, but "social club" might be a more apt description.
• Mugezi's excremental duties are an apt metaphor for the punishing regime in which he finds himself trapped.
• Fahey was obviously an apt pupil.
• The former epithet is apt, the latter less so.
• In this situation professionals are most apt to allow their normal reserve about commerce to lapse, and to give meaningful information.
• And the more successful a company has been, the more difficult and painful this process is apt to be.
• When a moving object catches their attention, babies are apt to focus on it.
• She asks him to remember her, and he replies that he is more apt to forget anything else.
• And I am apt to nudge my boys to join me in folding the laundry while we watch a television show together.
• Shaw is like saltwater in the face and Margaret was apt to splutter.
apt description
• In 1955, Gibson formally dubbed it an organization, though social club might have been a more apt description.
• The manual suggests that you move the carriage as if ironing and this is a very apt description.
• We were travelling along the Lofoten Wall, an apt description for the mountains protecting this huge sea fjord.
• This time, the term attenuation band is an apt description of each range of frequency.
• More than half of them said it tastes like melted-down bubble gum, which is an apt description of Josta.
• There could not be a more apt description of this mountain in miniature.
22.wispy
wisp /wɪsp/ noun [countable]
1 a wisp of hair, grass, hay etc is a thin piece of it that is separate from the rest
wisp of
A wisp of hair had escaped from under her hat.
2 a wisp of smoke, cloud, mist etc is a small thin line of it that rises upwards
wisp of
Wisps of smoke rose into the air.
→ will o' the wisp
—wispy adjective
Examples from the Corpus
wisp
• Next comes a snap of a wisp of hair.
• If there was any wisp of consciousness remaining, it was beyond the reach of instruments, and of memory.
• Her body lay open before him, her only covering a few wisps of silk.
• One wisp of smoke will not yearn for another.
• Corbett steeled himself but Agatha only moved the wisps of blonde hair from her forehead.
• Tiny wisps of ash floated up.
• At dawn he'd woken up briefly, plagued by the vanishing wisps of a vague and irritating dream.
• Smoke rose out of the crooked chimneys that poked through their roofs, white wisps trailing north with the wind.
25.slurped
26.instinctive
27.collateral
28.gurgling
29.chuff
3. I closed my eyes and saw him at the other end of the scratchy long-distance line, saw him with his lips slightly parted, head tilted to one side.
3*comment
detail describe
I closed my eyes and saw her at the other end of the scratchy long-distance line, saw her with her lips slightly parted, head tilted to one side.
4.All the money Baba had spent, all those nights he'd sweated over the blueprints, all the visits to the construction site to make sure every brick, every beam, and every block was laid just right...
2*comment
war can ruin everything.
Fourteen:
summary:
After answering the phone, Amir recalled Rahim Khan, and decided to pay a visit.
Fifteen.
summary:
Amir came back to Kabul and met Rahim Khan, telling him about his marriage and shared the years they were apart.
Sixteen
Summary:
Rahim Khan wanted to ask Ali to watch the house for him, however Ali was past and His son Hassan hesitated to do so at first then finally accepted, and he got married as well.
