English English Dictionary

English - English

to sb in English:

1. happen


If you know that something unpleasant will happen, that you will go to the dentist for example, or to France, then that is not good.
what's happening?
He was so healthy up to the minute of his sudden death. You really never know what might happen next.
Suppose there was a worldwide oil shortage in ten years' time. What would happen to the industrialised countries?
If a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it, did it happen? If a man speaks his mind in a forest, and no woman hears him, is he still wrong?
There are many uses of the 'present tense' of Japanese grammar which indicate things yet to happen.
How does it happen that you were not eaten up with all those hundreds and trillions of cats?
I'm sorry, but do you happen to have the key to that machine over there? My croissant is stuck.
I just got a great job because of an introduction from a friend. Sometimes things happen when you least expect it.
Wealth comes to those who make things happen, not to those who let things happen.
That shan't happen again, Fortunatus said to himself, and they started to ride at each other again. This time, Fortunatus's spear met his foe so powerfully that he flew from his horse like a ball and lay dead on the earth.
(be) Tom happened ... at Alan's when I called in so I invited him to our party as well.
To my chief strategist, David Axelrod, who's been a partner with me every step of the way. To the best campaign team ever assembled in the history of politics! You made this happen, and I am forever grateful for what you've sacrificed to get it done.

2. explain


Professors should explain everything in detail, not be succinct and always tell students to go home and read their books.
It takes only a short time to learn how to explain things to students. It takes much longer to learn when not to.
I explained
It is, moreover, very difficult to explain in any other way why there should be so much helium in the universe.
When I first took a C course, I couldn't understand a single thing explained in class. Thank God I got a friend of mine who's a programmer to explain to me how the whole caboodle works.
Good doctors explain things to patients in easily understandable ways, using anatomical models and such.
These special characteristics explain its preference for still-hunting (lying motionless beside a seal's breathing hole, waiting for one to surface).
We need to postulate a completely different paradigm to explain all these phenomena.
Without warning, the teachers ask students from each country to take the microphone and explain to everyone their reasons for coming to Harbin.
I can't quite explain it, but I believe I've caught a glimpse of the differences between Japanese and American cultures and lifestyles.
The role of the historian is less to discover and catalog documents than to interpret and explain them.
A dream... I was trying to explain to St. Peter, and was doing it in the German tongue, because I didn't want to be too explicit.
In particular, it is customary for actual examples of use of the harmonic mean to generally cover "average speed," and explain no further than that.
It's no use trying to find people to play Street Fighter with when you can't explain double quarter-circle joystick motions.
The aim of this report is to explain why there is the problem of obesity among primary school children and how this problem could be resolved.

English word "to sb"(explain) occurs in sets:

Verb and preposition - online grammar course

3. describe


I'd describe him as a middle-aged man in a yellow jacket, orange tie and a pink shirt.
The scene of the murder was too terrible to describe.
describe the picture
My grandfather often doesn't remember what happened yesterday but can describe in detail what happened forty years ago.
Linguistics is the discipline which aims to describe language.
People that have experienced so-called 'lucid dreams' often describe them as being 'more real than reality'. They also describe reality after waking up from a 'lucid dream' to be like a 'whimsical dream'.
Write a paragraph by using adjectives to describe the person's appearance.
Alex would correctly describe the object and color, even if he had never seen that object before.
Bill Clinton spoke in ambiguous language when asked to describe his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
The term ‘milonguero style tango’ was coined in the early 1990s to describe the style of dancing tango that was prevalent in the milongas of downtown Buenos Aires in the 1950s.
It is beyond the scope of the present work to describe all the components that comprise Emmet's architectural style.
he described his experiences in a letter to his parents
Neighbours described her as a shy, quiet girl. [+ question word] I tried to describe what I had seen.
I can describe China, especially in relation to big cities like Beijing, in one sentence - China is a country whose pace of life is both fast and leisurely.

4. Important


It's not important.
Each time I see Mary, I learn something new and important from her.
If my wife calls, just tell her I'm in an important meeting and cannot be disturbed.
I wish I could care more about my grades but it seems that, at a certain point of my life, I decided they wouldn't be so important anymore.
You should write down whatever seems to be important.
Winning the competition is important. However, fair play is more important. You need to understand that winning is not the most important thing.
There were many things that I thought were important at that time that I no longer believe are important.
The important point to note is that both parties offered similar solutions to this problem.
Getting your message across is much more important than trying to say it exactly like a native speaker would say it.
In general, communication between doctors and their patients is the most important part of medical treatment.
The more countries a language is spoken in, the less important it is to sound like a native speaker, since speakers of that language are accustomed to hearing various dialects.
Franklin Roosevelt was born to a rich and important New York family.
That report was important because it pointed out all the errors the committee had made.
I discovered too late that I left out the most important part of my speech.
A few important facts emerged after the investigation.

English word "to sb"(Important) occurs in sets:

Prepositions od Jane

5. belong


The Japanese tend to identify themselves with the group they belong to.
When you’ve finished, put the cassettes back where they belong.
I belong to Adam.
Any industrial property rights relating to the Product Specification shall belong to ABC Inc.
Who do you belong to? Wrapped around his feet was a small cat. It was a fluffy grey striped cat.
Humans are amphibians — half spirit and half animal.... As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time.
The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved. To this type belong many lunatics and most of the great men of history.
Any result obtained through the execution of the Commissioned Business shall belong to each party hereto.
I don't want to belong to the elite at all. It's already enough for me to be the best.
You belong in a better place than this.
In fact history does not belong to us but rather we to it. Long before we understand ourselves through the process of self-examination, we understand ourselves in a self-evident way in the family, society, and state in which we live.
The world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first class. There’s far less competition.
We want to check and correct in priority sentences that do not belong to anyone.
I belong here with you, not down south.
I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member.

English word "to sb"(belong) occurs in sets:

Prepositions after VERBS

6. be close



English word "to sb"(be close) occurs in sets:

Prepositions after ADJECTIVES

7. be married



8. acceptable


His ideas are too radical to be acceptable to most people.
Let's find a solution that is acceptable to everyone.
Doing math is the only socially acceptable way to masturbate in public.
Cheating on one's spouse is not usually considered acceptable behavior.
OPP unacceptable
There are conditions under which breaking a promise or telling a lie are acceptable.
It is acceptable to mention your job and interests and to ask the other person about his, but be careful not to let the conversation become too personal.
A lot of people exceed the speed limit so it must be acceptable.
In our interpretation, the output data in Table 2 is an acceptable variation of that in Table 1.
Driving after drinking alcohol is not acceptable behavior.
Acceptable and unacceptable are clearly in opposition to each other.
Do you think it is acceptable for animals to be used in experiments?
The factory has been producing higher than acceptable levels of pollution
He had no acceptable answer for that.

9. apologize


Don't apologize.
The three of them were the only ones to apologize to her.
There's no need to apologize.
He was about to apologize when the man punched him in the face.
Tom called Mary to apologize to her, but she hung up on him.
You had better apologize to him for that failure in some way or other.
Even if you are not to blame, you should apologize.
A few minutes of Stephen Fry will make any American apologize for his rhoticity.
He might at least apologize.
Let me apologize once again for missing our meeting.
We apologize for the mistake and promise that it won't happen again.
He wouldn't lower himself to apologize.
I apologize that I'm not able to give a better reference to this work.
I apologize to you for my misbehaviour.
They always come back and apologize.

10. be kind



11. be rude


You mustn't be rude.

12. engaged


I'm engaged tomorrow, so I've arranged for someone else to take my place.
The military engaged the enemy five kilometers south of the capital.
I hope to be engaged in the export business after graduating from college.
Even though we're engaged, she wouldn't let me kiss her.
They're engaged.
You know my younger daughter is about the same age as your son. That's why I think that they will get engaged.
Roger Ascham one day paying a visit to the amiable but unfortunate Lady Jane Grey found her employed in reading Plato while the rest of the family were engaged in a hunting party in the park.
The severity of such marks can reveal whether or not any of these people were habitually engaged in hard labor.
As a similar feature it is noted that students engaged in fund-raising activities rarely contribute money they have earned themselves.
We all knew that Bob was on a wild-goose chase after Marge, because she was already happily engaged.
At that time in the courts of the feudal lords there were many scholars who engaged in discrimination, such as the followers of Xun Kuang, who wrote books that were disseminated throughout the whole world.
Christopher Columbus once engaged in a debate with the Divine Celt. It would become the only contest that Columbus ever lost.
After going out with each other for six years, Tom and Lisa have finally got engaged.
I didn't feel like the interviewers were engaged with what I was saying.
I can't come to dinner on Tuesday - i'm otherwise engaged (I have already arranged to do something else).

13. grateful


In looking back, I feel deeply grateful to my parents.
His employer was sincerely grateful for his cooperation.
I can't express how grateful I am.
grateful to somebody
If you would agree to answer some of the questions below, I would be extremely grateful.
I am grateful for your hospitality, and the hospitality of the people of Egypt.
To my chief strategist, David Axelrod, who's been a partner with me every step of the way. To the best campaign team ever assembled in the history of politics! You made this happen, and I am forever grateful for what you've sacrificed to get it done.
She took her friend's help for granted and wasn't really grateful for it.
But on the day of the mock exams, there are no club activities, so that means I can walk back home with Haruka. And I'm grateful for that.
Brian was grateful when Chris delivered the money on the weekend.
After the earthquake we felt grateful to be alive.
Thanks for looking after my dog for the weekend. I'm really grateful.
I'm grateful to have family and friends who support me.
I feel grateful to hear that she has got well.

14. engagement


I'm reconsidering my engagement.
The media got wind of a rumor about his engagement and came quickly.
If I had not had a previous engagement, I could have come to the party.
How about a cup of coffee? "I'd like to, but I have a previous engagement."
She doesn't want him to buy an expensive engagement ring.
I regret that a previous engagement prevents me from accepting your kind invitation.
Do you have any engagement tomorrow?
His father would never sanction his engagement to a girl who did not share the same religious beliefs as their family.
Didn't you get married!? "Oh, we split up. We broke our engagement."
The engagement of Mr Rogers and Miss Smith was announced yesterday.
The engagement is often followed by a public announcement of marriage.
It's been two weeks since Mary and John's engagement.
On February 24, 1981, their engagement was announced
Is our engagement still on?
on my finger like an engagement ring

English word "to sb"(engagement) occurs in sets:

Prepositions for Ewa

15. familiar


Every student of biology, anatomy, anthropology, ethnology or psychology is familiar with these facts.
familiar with
After listening to an Arabic song for ten seconds, Dima finally heard a familiar voice say, "As-Salamu Alaykum!"
In order to study computational linguistics it's necessary to know various languages, however, one also has to be familiar with the use of computers.
Whenever I translate something from English into Spanish, I prefer to use the familiar "tú" instead of the formal "usted".
The familiar argument against a proposed action that it is premature.
Filiberto lives in a very large apartment in a city we're not familiar with.
Let me ask you something, Dad, she began, in a tone of patiently controlled exasperation that every experienced parent is familiar with.
Download Shtooka Recorder and get familiar with it. You will be using it to record the sentences. It's a very useful program.
I'm sure that family is familiar with Japanese tastes in food. They've hosted quite a few Japanese exchange students.
The map on page 11 looks very strange. Turn it upside down. Then it becomes a familiar map to you.
In ancient China there were no cats; the cat that we are familiar with today was not imported into China from abroad until much later.
I grew up in this village, so all the houses are familiar.
But that morning, he found all those familiar chores very enjoyable.
For those of you not familiar with Tunbridge Wells, town which have a superhero.