New answers tagged meaning-in-context
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What does "Alice started to her feet" mean?
The explanation of the phrase saying Alice started to her feet: the girl had no intention of moving from where she had sat but she suddenly moved at the rabbit's appearance towards her.
Therefore, ...
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What do 'flat-chested' and 'unromantic' mean when speaking of a house?
I read that using my antiquated/extremely-sexist-colored glasses.
In it, Holmes reached a neighborhood of plain, boring, unattractive but perhaps functional houses. If you live in a place with ...
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What do 'flat-chested' and 'unromantic' mean when speaking of a house?
It's a sexist-adjacent way to say the houses project forwards an uninspiringly minimal degree of three-dimensional structure while simultaneously featuring no significant artistic flourishes. Think: ...
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What do 'flat-chested' and 'unromantic' mean when speaking of a house?
I agree with Kay Bunting, but here I think "flat-chested" specifically means lacking bay windows.
In Britain in general, and London in particular, bay windows are a common feature of houses. ...
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Is "samuraily" correct?
No, "samuraily" is not a correct or recognized word in English.
Instead, you could use the term "bushido" to refer to the knightly traditions of the samurai class in Japan. Bushido ...
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What do 'flat-chested' and 'unromantic' mean when speaking of a house?
I agree entirely with KateBunting's reading of the passage, but some further explanation might be interesting ...
The usual application of flat-chested is to women; for example, Cambridge Dictionary ...
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What do 'flat-chested' and 'unromantic' mean when speaking of a house?
I visualise the houses as having a perfectly flat façade with no decorative porches, balconies or bay windows; unromantic in the sense of being perfectly dull and ordinary.
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What is the meaning of "to have" in old cartoons?
Based on this “Little Red Riding Rabbit” TVTropes page, ta have is an affectation of Red:
Verbal Tic: Red ends a lot of her lines with the exclamation “Ta’
Have!”, just another thing that makes her ...
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Is "turn comments" or "turning comments" an idiomatic way of responding to feedback?
Almost all the references I can find to this term involve investment banking; it seems to be largely specific to that field. One definition is found in this article from Bloomberg:
I return from the ...
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What does "Can I help you?" really mean?
Anton's answer already contains all the practical advice that anybody may need on how to react to this phrase, but for the purposes of this site it should be clarified that, when the phrase is used in ...
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What’s the difference between "How can I help you?"and "How can we help you?"
As Ms. Bunting has already explained in a comment, we here stands for the business as a whole, which involves other people, even though they are not currently on the premises. The idea conveyed by we ...
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What is "prescriptive infirmity"?
Bathsheba, riding on top of a cartload of furniture, unpacks a bedroom mirror and looks at herself, apparently just from vanity.
Oxford Languages defines prescriptive as (2) (of a right, title, or ...
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Is “since long” correct English, and if so what does it mean?
It is a weaker version of "Ever since, as a matter of practice, larger issuers have voluntarily offered more forward-looking information than was strictly required". This one implies that ...
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What does 'picket fence' mean here?
As Wiktionary explains, the phrase "white picket fence" is often used as "a symbol of the ideal middle-class suburban life, with a large house, family, and peaceful lifestyle."
The ...
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What's the meaning of "jutul" ? Is it somehow related to "jotun" or giant?
I don't know the derivation of the word, but it crops up occasionally in books of Scandinavian folk culture, as in these quotes that all discuss the same anecdote. Respectively, they are from The ...
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What does saying "without the service" mean when paying the bill at a restaurant?
The phrase is definitely a service, in England or Britain. That said it doesn’t necessarily mean she’s stuffing the waitress, although in the show you’re referring to, one gets the impression that is ...
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What does saying "without the service" mean when paying the bill at a restaurant?
I just watched this section on Netflix. For reference, the main character says, "Without the service. Thank you." to the waiter, confirmed by the closed captions.
Based on this article, I ...
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