What does bad mean

Crossword clues for bad

bad

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English

bad

I.adjective

COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES

a bad atmosphere

▪ There's a bad atmosphere among the staff.

a bad cold

▪ If you have a bad cold, just stay in bed.

a bad complexion (=with spots or marks on it)

a bad cough

▪ Jason’s at home with a bad cough.

a bad day (=in which things have happened in a way you do not want)

▪ I’ve had a really bad day !

a bad debt (=one that is unlikely to be paid back)

▪ Companies lose millions of pounds each year from having to write off bad debts.

a bad decision

▪ I think he made a bad decision.

a bad dream (=unpleasant or frightening)

▪ The movie gave the kids bad dreams.

a bad driver

▪ There are a lot of bad drivers on the roads.

a bad guy (=a person who is responsible for something bad that happens, or a person who you do not like)

▪ I'm fed up with people always thinking that I am the bad guy.

▪ Mike's not a bad guy.

a bad mood

▪ The news had put her in a bad mood.

a bad move

▪ It was a bad move letting him come here in the first place.

a bad name

▪ Most students feel that both boys and girls deserve a bad name if they sleep around.

a bad precedent

▪ Such a harsh punishment would set a bad precedent.

a bad reaction

▪ She had a bad reaction to the medicine.

a bad state (also a poor/sorry state)

▪ The report commented on the poor state of the roads.

a bad/negative image

▪ It’s difficult to explain why the industry has such a bad image.

▪ Many negative images of women are found in the media.

a bad/negative impression

▪ Arriving late for an interview gives a very negative impression.

a bad/negative influence

▪ He thought her friends were a bad influence.

a bad/ominous sign

▪ The jury was taking ages to make up its mind, which he felt was probably a bad sign.

a bad/poor investment

▪ The shares turned out to be a poor investment.

a bad/poor/disastrous start

▪ Things got off to a bad start when two people turned up late.

a bad/serious accident

▪ There’s been a bad accident on the freeway.

▪ The road is closed following a serious accident.

a bad/terrible joke (=not funny)

▪ Dad was known for his bad jokes.

a bad/terrible storm

▪ This was the worst storm for 50 years.

a bad/terrible/dreadful etc mistake

▪ It would be a terrible mistake to marry him.

a bad/terrible/nasty temper

▪ He ran back home in a terrible temper.

a bad/weak heart (=an unhealthy heart)

▪ The effort proved too much for her weak heart.

a big/bad defeat (also a heavy defeat British English) (= by a large amount)

▪ The polls were forecasting a heavy defeat for the President.

a good/bad child

▪ Be a good child and sit down!

a good/bad etc kisser

a good/bad experience

▪ On the whole, going to boarding school was a good experience for him.

▪ I've had some bad experiences when I've been travelling on my own.

a good/bad habit

▪ Eating healthy food as snacks is a good habit to get into.

a good/bad idea

▪ Keeping the drinks cold in the bath was a good idea.

▪ Knocking down this wall was a really bad idea.

a good/bad spell

▪ The team had some good spells during the match.

a good/bad/ill omen

▪ The mist seemed like a bad omen and Sara’s heart sank a little.

a run of good/bad luck (=a series of good or bad things)

▪ The team has had a run of bad luck lately, losing their last five games.

a serious/bad error

▪ The police made a serious error, which resulted in a young man’s death.

a situation worsens/deteriorates/gets worse

▪ Reports from the area suggest the situation has worsened.

assume the worst (=think that the worst possible thing had happened)

▪ When it got to midnight and Paul was still not back, I began to assume the worst.

bad advice

▪ Financial advisors can be fined if they give bad advice to a client.

bad breath (=that smells unpleasant)

▪ Smoking gives you bad breath.

bad cholesterol

bad debt

bad driving

▪ Bad driving can cause potentially fatal accidents.

bad guy

bad hair day

bad line

▪ I’m sorry, it’s a bad line and I can’t hear you.

bad luck

▪ His bad luck continued.

bad manners

▪ She apologized for her son’s bad manners.

bad news

▪ ‘I’m afraid I have bad news,’ said Jackson.

▪ Have you heard the terrible news about Simon?

bad planning

▪ ‘I’ve got no money left.’ ‘That was bad planning.’

bad points

▪ What would you say are Natalie’s bad points?

bad publicity (also adverse/negative publicityformal)

▪ Fatty foods have received much bad publicity in recent years.

▪ They don't want any more adverse publicity.

bad (=one that is making you cough or giving you pain)

▪ I'm not going running today - my chest is bad.

bad

▪ Working too hard was beginning to have a bad effect on my health.

bad

▪ If you get a bad grade, Mrs. Miller will help you until you can do better.

bad

▪ Later that evening, the pain was really bad.

bad (=wet or stormy)

▪ Several flights were cancelled owing to bad weather.

bad/nasty (=wide or deep and bleeding a lot)

▪ The cut looked quite bad.

▪ How did you get that nasty cut?

bad/naughty boy

▪ ‘You naughty boy!’ she said in a harsh voice.

bad/poor

▪ Moles have very poor eyesight.

bad/poor

▪ Poor hearing can affect your social relationships.

bad/poor

▪ The city doesn’t deserve its bad reputation.

bad/poor/terrible

▪ A student with a poor memory may struggle in school.

bad/poor/terrible/awful

▪ Why do doctors have such terrible handwriting?

bad/rotten

▪ She felt ashamed of her bad teeth and rarely smiled.

bad/serious/severe

▪ The mines have caused serious pollution of the river system.

▪ The pollution was so bad that most of the fish died.

bad/severe migraine

▪ He suffers from severe migraine.

bad/terrible

▪ The traffic was terrible this morning.

bad/terrible (=with many spots or marks)

▪ I had terrible skin when I was a teenager.

▪ My skin’s really bad at the moment.

bad/terrible/severe

▪ I’ve got a really bad headache.

bad/unpleasant/horrible etc

▪ The smell in the shed was awful.

be bigger/smaller/worse etc than you had imagined

▪ The job interview proved to be much worse than I had imagined it would be.

be good/bad for morale

▪ Well-deserved praise is always good for morale.

be good/bad for the environment

▪ Plastic bags are bad for the environment.

be good/bad for your health

▪ Eating plenty of vegetables is good for your health.

bring sb (good/bad) luck

▪ He always carried the stone in his pocket; he reckoned it brought him luck.

create a good/bad atmosphere

▪ Lighting is one of the most effective ways of creating a good atmosphere.

gave it up as a bad job (=stopped trying because success seemed unlikely)

▪ The ground was too hard to dig so I gave it up as a bad job.

get off to a good/bad etc start

▪ On your first day at work, you want to get off to a good start.

give sb/sth a bad name (=make someone or something have a bad reputation)

▪ A scandal like this could give the university a bad name.

go bad/sour etc

▪ The bread’s gone mouldy.

good going/not bad going

▪ We climbed the mountain in three hours, which wasn’t bad going.

good/bad circulation

▪ Doctors had to remove her leg because of bad circulation.

good/bad dancer

▪ Dave’s a good dancer.

good/bad etc at (doing) sth

▪ I’ve always been good at maths.

▪ Matt’s bad at handling people.

good/bad etc memories

▪ He left school with good memories of his time there.

good/bad etc posture

▪ Poor posture can lead to muscular problems.

good/bad etc vibes

▪ I have good vibes about this contract.

good/bad karma

▪ The house had a lot of bad karma.

good/bad loser (=someone who behaves well or badly after losing)

good/bad management

▪ good management and co-operation with staff

good/bad

▪ The boys were suspended from school for bad behaviour.

▪ His good behaviour did not last long.

good/bad

▪ a lazy student with a bad attitude

good/bad/poor sportsmanship (=good or bad behaviour in a sport)

▪ We try to teach the kids good sportsmanship.

good/bad/slow etc service

▪ The service was terrible and so was the food.

have a bad night (=not sleep well, especially when you are ill)

▪ I had a bad night last night.

have a good/bad etc reputation

▪ The law firm has an excellent reputation.

have a good/bad etc start

▪ We’ve had a disappointing start but we are hoping to improve.

have a good/bad/long etc day

▪ Simon looked as if he’d had a bad day at the office.

have good/bad etc hearing

▪ Dogs have excellent hearing.

have good/bad etc weather

▪ We have had lovely weather all week.

have good/bad luck

▪ I’ve had a bit of bad luck.

have good/bad manners

▪ All their children have such good manners.

have the (good/bad) luck to do sth

▪ He had the good luck to meet a man who could help him.

hit a snag/problems/a bad patch etc

▪ My father hit a bad patch, he had to sell the house.

in good/bad/terrible etc condition

▪ How do you keep your hair in such perfect condition?

it’s good/bad manners to do sth

▪ It’s bad manners to chew with your mouth open.

least worst

▪ Often it’s a question of choosing the least worst option.

longer/higher/worse etc than usual

▪ It is taking longer than usual for orders to reach our customers.

look good/bad etc

▪ The future’s looking good.

make a good/bad/early etc start

▪ He made a flying start at college, but then he didn't manage to keep it up.

make sth the best/worst/most expensive etc

▪ Over 80,000 people attended, making it the biggest sporting event in the area.

make things worse/easier/difficult

▪ Measures to slow down traffic on the main street have actually made things worse.

of the worst/best etc kind

▪ This is hypocrisy of the worst kind.

painted...in a bad light (=described him in a way that made him seem bad)

▪ The article painted him in a bad light.

perfect/good/bad etc timing

▪ He was just walking into the restaurant when we got there. Perfect timing.

poor/bad (=with few crops)

▪ A series of poor harvests plunged them into debt.

poor/bad (=not bright enough)

▪ The light was too poor for me to read.

prepared for the worst (=expected something very bad)

▪ There was no news and we were prepared for the worst.

put in/up a (good/bad etc) performance

▪ Liverpool put in a marvellous performance in the second half.

run of good/bad luck

▪ Losing my job was the start of a run of bad luck that year.

sb's eyesight gets worse/deteriorates

▪ Your eyesight gradually deteriorates with age.

sb's hearing gets worse (also sb's hearing deteriorates)

▪ The medication seemed to make her hearing get worse.

sb's worst nightmare (=the worst possible situation)

▪ The outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease was farming's worst nightmare.

sb’s worst/greatest fear

▪ Her worst fear was never seeing her children again.

serious/severe/bad

▪ He was taken to Broomfield Hospital with serious head wounds.

significantly better/greater/worse etc

▪ Delia’s work has been significantly better this year.

smell bad/awful etc

▪ Cigarettes make your clothes smell awful.

take a turn for the worse/better

▪ Two days after the operation, Dad took a turn for the worse.

the bad guy (=a man in a book or movie who does bad things)

▪ The bad guys all have guns.

the bearer of bad news

▪ I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but ...

the best/worst kind

▪ Not knowing what had happened to her was the worst kind of torture.

the best/worst part

▪ The worst part was having to work even when it was raining.

the good news is …/the bad news is ... (=used to introduce a piece of good and bad news)

▪ The good news is that most stores have the game in stock; the bad news is that it's not cheap.

the pain gets worse

▪ If the pain gets any worse, see your doctor.

the very best/latest/worst etc

▪ We only use the very best ingredients.

the worst hit

▪ The south of the country is the worst hit by the recession.

the worst moment

▪ Standing on the edge waiting to do your bungee jump is the worst moment.

the worst offender

▪ Among causes of air pollution, car exhaust fumes may be the worst offender.

the worst recession

▪ Colombia is going through its worst recession in decades.

the worst scandal (=the biggest or most shocking)

▪ Total losses resulting from India's worst financial scandal amounted to Rs31,000 million.

the worst-case/worst scenario (=the worst thing that might happen)

▪ The worst-case scenario is that it is already too late to do anything about global warming.

things get worse

▪ As the recession proceeds, things will get worse.

went from bad to worse (=got even worse)

▪ When she arrived, things just went from bad to worse!

went from bad to worse (=got even worse)

▪ When she arrived, things just went from bad to worse!

worse off

▪ The rent increases will leave us worse off.

worse than useless (=not useful, and causing harm or problems)

▪ It would be worse than useless to try and complain about him.

worst excesses

▪ He lived through some of the worst excesses of apartheid in South Africa.

COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS

■ NOUN

behaviour

▪ The butcher chases them off the rock with kicks and abusive shouts, as though punishing them for bad behaviour.

▪ Good Book - bad behaviour I was delighted to read David Helton's biblical approach to his subject.

▪ In established States, less serious forms of bad behaviour are also permitted.

▪ What is her attitude towards tantrums or bad behaviour and what action would she take on your behalf?

▪ And, more importantly, some one who doesn't let her get away with tantrums, bossiness or bad behaviour.

▪ It is generally not useful to speculate that such time-removed antecedents are associated with bad behaviour.

▪ Try to catch him or her out in good as well as bad behaviour.

▪ Teachers were criticised for allowing bad behaviour.

boy

▪ Then old man Lawton goes missing and suspicion fixes on his son, Ronny, the local bad boy.

▪ His bad boy always drove me to my vivacious good girl.

▪ He always presented himself as the redeemed bad boy, but it was a lie, she says.

▪ He is not a bad boy.

▪ Another rehabilitated star admitting he was a bad boy.

▪ Nat is not, we say, actually, we say, a bad boy.

▪ In fact, Kaptan was not such a bad boy.

▪ Roberts' eyes widen, as if Gibson was the school bad boy and had just told off the principal.

case

▪ Indeed, at one point the peak of a worst case fluctuation actually exceeds that of the best case.

▪ The economy had not just a passing cold but a bad case of the flu.

▪ The worst case scenario suggests aircraft could be responsible for up to 43 percent of the projected rise in global temperature.

▪ Despite all this ingenuity, the Malibu has been built with a bad case of the rolling uglies.

▪ He says it's one of the worst cases he's seen.

▪ It was several times worse than the worst case the computer models had predicted.

▪ Its bite produces a worm which swells up the blood vessels, causing ulcers and, in the worst cases, blindness.

▪ He had arrived from Minneapolis in a linen suit and had a bad case of the trots.

day

▪ Perhaps the worst day of all Sunday.

▪ A Sheila na gigh which now resembled Beirut on a bad day.

▪ And you thought you were having a bad day.

▪ Mr Howard painted a picture of industrial unrest under Labour rivalling the worst days of the 1970s.

▪ However, on a bad day chaos reigns, and nobody can predict a likely departure time.

▪ They had a bad day in the office.

▪ After this bad day, anyone not tucked up in bed is making them suspicious.

debt

▪ Of the top 19 banks, 13 are expected to make losses this year as they write off bad debts.

▪ The previous year, when profits were just £36 million, bad debts totalled £903 million.

▪ The group made a £597m charge to cover possible bad debts.

▪ The incidence of bad debt, he concluded, was socially unacceptable and financially disastrous.

▪ Most large societies have also made heavy provisions against bad debts.

▪ The Royal Bank has suffered a slide in profits to £20.9 million from £57.7 million and has seen bad debts soar.

▪ In the event the anticipated collapse of the first genetic engineering company amid a pile of bad debts did not come about.

▪ Unfortunately most of the extra cash grabbed was swallowed up by bad debts.

dream

▪ All night he had bad dreams, terrible dreams.

▪ I was used to my bad dreams and the attacks of panic that followed them.

▪ Well, it happened, one night, between bad dreams.

▪ The illness and those involved faded like a bad dream.

▪ Be understanding if he or she suddenly starts wetting the bed or crying for attention following a bad dream in the night.

▪ I've forgotten to write down the bad dream I had last night.

▪ Well no, she didn't really have bad dreams - oh ... but that was before ... she remembered.

▪ They were not really bad dreams, more an aching yearning pain that seemed to permeate her very being.

experience

▪ But what happens if work is demonstrably and objectively a bad experience?

▪ Long jumping was a bad experience, and Edwards never distinguished himself in it.

▪ However, invariably, it is not only bad experiences of learning that are committed to memory.

▪ If they had a bad experience, it could be they wish not to speak to us.

▪ Hardness A hard Rottweiler is one who does not allow bad experiences to affect him permanently.

▪ They may have bad experiences from visiting prisons in the past.

▪ As I say I've not had anything like the bad experience of it that a lot of people have had.

▪ They had many bad experiences to relate on this score.

faith

▪ In the present case the plaintiff did not allege, nor did the judge find, any bad faith by the defendants.

▪ School officials can lose this qualified privilege if they act in bad faith or without regard for whether the statements are true.

▪ And some councils are acting in bad faith.

▪ I think a leap of bad faith was made.

▪ It is indeed difficult to conceive of bad faith which would not automatically render applicable one of the two traditional control mechanisms.

▪ Nevertheless, with the passage of time the Soviet side could begin to accuse us of bad faith.

▪ No doubt the missio, with its insistence on proving bad faith, had not been a wholly satisfactory remedy.

▪ I can't help feeling, therefore, that your critical position relies on a heavy dose of bad faith.

guy

▪ As I have had reason to observe before, the malai medics weren't such bad guys.

▪ In one I had to sit all night in the woods, completely still, while the bad guys circled nearby.

▪ For me, we were the good guys and they were the bad guys.

▪ The bad guy had become the good guy, the almost great guy.

▪ He is the uneducated country underdog who takes on the bad guys from the big city and wins.

▪ Maybe the bad guys on the ground thought we were giving them a bath or something.

▪ For years he had continued a running battle with producers and film companies whom he saw as the bad guys.

▪ Consider the sinister, theatrical laugh of the matinee bad guy.

habit

▪ Ever since I was a teenager, I have had the bad habit of pulling and twisting my hair.

▪ They are not aware of their bad habits.

▪ So what can we do about bad habits in horses?

▪ But that lone bad habit burns through your writing like a blowtorch, outshining all the others.

▪ A person may develop bad habits that need correction.

▪ The singer evinced one bad habit in the Mahler group, a tendency to scoop into opening phrases.

▪ Unwittingly she was operating the intermittent reinforcement principle in support of a bad habit!

▪ Simply determine which structural bad habit is most pronounced and edit for that.

idea

▪ She had no doubt it would be a very bad idea for them to go in search of Oliver and Cobalt.

▪ This is both a bad idea and bad timing.

▪ The paper claimed that most businessmen believed that it was a bad idea to change horses in midstream.

▪ Requiring a central bank to support a flagging currency will remain a bad idea after the union is formed, Tietmeyer said.

▪ I mean, it's not a bad idea, Chief Inspector.

▪ So fission power is an even worse idea.

▪ Here, he will say, is another fashionable and bad idea.

▪ A quick history lesson by their coaches may not be a bad idea.

luck

▪ But to Profumo's bad luck, other newsworthy circumstances were available to salt the story.

▪ Unfortunately, the gents had bad luck.

▪ He confesses that he had the bad luck to cross both Nancy Reagan and Barbara Bush.

▪ Nearly all gone now, worse luck, and the guv'nor's arrived to read the riot act.

▪ People take something, then have all this bad luck.

▪ He believes the placement of the tree is bad luck.

▪ You go up there with the wrong attitude and come out with worse luck than you had before.

mood

▪ The feeling of contentment produced by gin-and-water had now disappeared, and the beadle was in a bad mood once more.

▪ Jerome had just changed his, but he was none the less still in a very bad mood.

▪ He was away all week and now arrived back on Friday evenings in a ready-made bad mood.

▪ No, our bad mood is caused by the bad mood of the adolescent children with whom we live.

▪ Today he was in a particularly bad mood.

▪ Despite bad moods and worse manners, the car could always be tamed by appreciation, patience and just enough rein.

▪ Ignore her, she is in a bad mood today.

name

▪ Bringing a bad name on two families.

▪ On the field, he is annoying and irritating and gives high-salaried athletes more of a bad name than they already have.

▪ Good technology has gained a bad name.

▪ This is the sort of self-serving, insincere baloney that gives good government a bad name.

▪ Bertie: That's exactly the sort of Stupid Cult that gives culture a bad name.

▪ This is the kind of disingenuous hair-splitting that gives politics a bad name.

▪ What happened is indisputable: students, and the institutions to which they belonged, acquired a bad name universally.

▪ These holy rollers gave all the churches a bad name.

news

▪ There is even worse news to come.

▪ But it was also because caregivers were reluctant, sometimes for good reason, to bear bad news.

▪ But the bad news is that the schemes require a 10-year commitment.

▪ Analysts had figured the bad news from the giant microprocessor maker would put a damper on technology stocks.

▪ After the next fifty yards I drew it out and took a look at the bad news.

▪ It is not all bad news for Gore.

▪ All this is bad news for Texas agriculture.

press

▪ Murders get a lot of bad press, so you don't publish the numbers.

▪ I think this is one of those projects that certainly got its share of bad press.

▪ Interwar Socialist Realism Socialist realism has a bad press in the West.

▪ We had bad press, we had a lawsuit.

▪ Free-electron lasers on the whole have had a rather bad press.

▪ Predictably, the law practice has caused Brown to be dogged by bad press.

▪ But gossip hasn't always had such bad press.

▪ Now I know Utopianism has recently had a bad press.

publicity

▪ Embarrassed bank officials agreed not to call in police rather than lose the entire haul and face bad publicity.

▪ When that received bad publicity, he promoted the Texas Guinan fat reducer.

▪ Much of the bad publicity came directly from the philistinism of the tabloid press.

▪ The delaying action kept the case out of court and minimized bad publicity until after he won re-election.

▪ Apparently there is such a thing as bad publicity.

▪ One reason commercial diet companies are having problems is that they received a lot of bad publicity in the early nineties.

▪ In the end the company Sure Style Windows, of Bury got nothing, but bad publicity.

▪ The workers said the campaign was attracting bad publicity for their company and putting their livelihoods at risk.

shape

▪ Others trying to do that, like Lucent, Alcatel and Nortel, are in at least as bad shape as Marconi.

▪ Sandy was in such bad shape.

▪ Everything up there's a complete write-off, and most of the first floor's in pretty bad shape.

▪ Uptown was still in bad shape.

▪ The galleys were in bad shape.

▪ You see children living in rooms that are in really bad shape.

▪ I knew that several of the others were in as bad shape as myself - probably worse.

▪ Representative government on Capitol Hill is in the worst shape I have seen it...

situation

▪ Students desperate to leave home may find themselves in a worse situation than the one they left.

▪ We put ourselves in bad situations.

▪ In my own school, there was another bad situation in a Fourth Grade class across the stair landing.

▪ Denying schooling, however, would just make a bad situation worse.

▪ This nearly always results in drifting further back without much gain of height and ending up in a worse situation than before.

▪ The worst situation was amidships, by the base of the mainmast.

start

▪ In the difficult job of getting through one's life happily, she had made a bad start.

▪ The bold event got off to a bad start.

▪ From that bad start, many little rotten apples grew.

▪ Only in 1993-94 did San Jose manage to survive a bad start.

▪ In an area with no obstetric service there is logic in this, but babies get the worst start in life.

▪ It was the worst start in the history of sports.

▪ Got off to a bad start because of its high price and lack of games.

▪ It was a bad start to the morning, and the rest of the day lived up to its promise.

taste

▪ And the resolution to this scene is exquisite in its chutzpah and farcical bad taste.

▪ Both are nuts, leave a bad taste and no one really understands why this tradition continues.&038;.

▪ I jolt awake with a bad taste in my mouth and my left eyelid stuck down again.

▪ When I suggested that oversized shirts were therefore counterproductive, he shut me up with a reminder of my previous bad taste.

▪ What exactly was Nichols' role: willing accomplice, or merely a man with a bad taste in friends?

▪ People just look faintly embarrassed at this bad taste.

▪ Private Parts is the second film so far this year that takes bad taste and turns it into a crusade.

temper

▪ Jane departed in floods of tears and Rosemary duly arrived, in a very bad temper.

▪ Too bad a promising young fellow should have dangerous opinions and a bad temper.

▪ We were all in a bad temper, acting like children.

▪ Kelly ruled by his bad temper.

▪ Sir Emmanuel had a terrible bad temper and was often full of whisky.

▪ As it was, I left in a bad temper which grew with every difficulty along the way.

▪ He believed she must have received some of his mailings by now as she was in an even worse temper than usual.

▪ It was clear, she told me, that Scott got his bad temper from his father.

thing

▪ That might be no bad thing.

▪ It turned out to be the next worst thing.

▪ Perhaps that was the worst thing that could happen to a human being.

▪ And the worst thing was that I really had little choice but to bow to their wishes.

▪ That is a bad thing in itself, for it means less competition and more wasted resources.

▪ Sometimes he did bad things just to be loved, and sometimes he hated himself for needing love so badly.

▪ And it is also good to think in terms of what bad things could happen.

things

▪ Metal fatigue has to be one of the worst things that can happen.

▪ They were out there trying to judge me and talk about all the bad things I did.

▪ Smallfry had forgotten to warn him because he had done so many bad things and caused a lot of trouble.

▪ She was a bad kid who did bad things.

▪ It was going to be a present for herself, a comfort after the bad things she had endured.

▪ Clearly, he has realized how bad things already are.

▪ It shows that however bad things are now - and they are pretty desperate - they are going to get much worse.

▪ And it is also good to think in terms of what bad things could happen.

time

▪ See, what happened to Rod is that he came along at a bad time in track and field.

▪ Amy glossed over the bad times.

▪ It was a bad time to have chosen for confrontation.

▪ That's what keeps friendships going, the bad times.

▪ I thought it would be great down there, but I started having a bad time so I went back to Newcastle.

▪ And it was still a bad time for the people in the middle.

▪ He threw one the very worst time, up on top of the wall, and the other kids all shunned away.

▪ His father, my ex-husband, was chronically depressed, just had a real bad time coping with life.

way

▪ Sometimes aircraft returning across the Channel are in a bad way.

▪ There are, however, better and worse ways of handling human problems.

▪ Not a bad way to go, in a blaze of your own gunpowder.

▪ I wanted in the worst way to ask him.

▪ She's in a bad way trying to have her pups.

▪ It was done in a bad way.

▪ Some are in a bad way so we share what we have.

▪ The feds wanted him to talk in the worst way.

weather

▪ Started four years ago, the work has been delayed by bad weather and geological problems.

▪ The only consoling thought was that the bad weather now extended south down the coast and would hold the Columbia up too.

▪ I don't know if it's pedestrianisation or the bad weather.

▪ The first, last year, was canceled because of bad weather.

▪ But it is not just bad weather which takes the gilt off the packed-lunch gingerbread.

▪ When bad weather turns up, one of the first places people turn to is the video store.

▪ Along the prom the amusements and rides were still open but the bad weather had kept people away.

▪ Our raft travelled so slowly that we could not run away from bad weather.

PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES

good/bad timekeeper

a bad/difficult/sticky/rough patch

▪ Even when they knew he was going through a bad patch they would continue to deliver dangerous back-passes to him.

▪ Every team goes through a bad patch.

▪ Evode has gone through a sticky patch.

▪ Having hit a bad patch, financially, I decided I must try for some paid work with my knitting machine.

▪ Ruefully, she recalled her pleasure at the way the book, after a difficult patch, had begun to develop.

▪ Sometimes I am a real power pack of efficiency; then I hit a bad patch.

▪ Talk about hitting a bad patch.

▪ The Royal Family is certainly going through a rough patch.

a bad/poor sport

▪ He told everyone Norm was a hothead, a poor sport, a disgrace as a Catholic, and a lousy catcher.

▪ It is not good for a player to be considered a poor sport.

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.

a fate worse than death

▪ I knew that Grandma's visit would be a fate worse than death.

▪ After all, she didn't know him, and a fate worse than death might just be awaiting her.

▪ It certainly wasn't because he was trying to save her from a Fate Worse than Death.

▪ There are various Pelagias who are known as penitent harlots or virgin martyrs who died to escape a fate worse than death.

▪ We've even growled at the horse, and threatened it with a fate worse than death, but to no avail!

a good/bad etc shot

▪ But Nogai's a good shot.

▪ Ed Kelley was a good shot.

▪ He made a good shot from there and holed a three-foot putt for a quadruple-bogey eight.

▪ If I hit a bad shot, I try to minimize its effect.

▪ Klingler made it clear at the end of 1996 that he wanted a better shot at moving up the depth chart.

▪ That much was the least expected of a hunter who had made a bad shot.

▪ They have a better shot at claiming the governorship.

▪ Tom played a bad shot out of the bunker, and he does no more than charge straight at this press guy.

a good/bad judge of sth

▪ Sarah's not a very good judge of character.

▪ And for all his imagination, he was not a good judge of character on limited acquaintance.

▪ But Anya's a better judge of character than she used to be, back in the old homeland.

▪ He's also a good judge of a quick run.

▪ He was a good judge of character, hated hypocrisy, and had no time for conceit.

▪ I didn't protest as it was his fence officially, and he was supposed to be a good judge of torque.

▪ It was not that he was too sure of himself simply that he was a good judge of the possible.

▪ Munnings, he told reporters, was a better judge of horses than paintings.

at (the) worst

▪ Many drivers feel their job is unpleasant at best, and dangerous at worst.

▪ Developing these required equations is at best difficult and at worst nearly impossible.

▪ Him, with him: the worst man in the worst place at the worst time.

▪ If we drop a tin can probably nothing will happen; at the worst we may make a small dent.

▪ In most cases doing a course of any kind will, at worst, just be a small waste of time.

▪ Naturally, it happened at the worst possible time.

▪ Patient and neutral stares at worst.

▪ The first assumption of the Census Bureau, therefore, must be viewed as fatuous at worst, naive at best.

▪ Up until then I had sometimes seen writing as at best a compulsion and at worst a sickness.

at your best/worst/most effective etc

bad faith

▪ And some councils are acting in bad faith.

▪ Guinness was accused of bad faith, in particular for failing to adhere to promises made in the official offer documents.

▪ I can't help feeling, therefore, that your critical position relies on a heavy dose of bad faith.

▪ I think a leap of bad faith was made.

▪ In Anisminic, Lord Reid gave the following examples: It may have given its decision in bad faith.

▪ In the present case the plaintiff did not allege, nor did the judge find, any bad faith by the defendants.

▪ School officials can lose this qualified privilege if they act in bad faith or without regard for whether the statements are true.

▪ What intrigues me about programmes like You've Been Framed is their bad faith.

bad form

▪ He asked Billy what he thought the worst form of execution was.

▪ Self-interest was the worst sin and slaveholding was the worst form of self-interest.

▪ Tainting the courts with politics is very bad form, but apparently irresistible.

▪ The most terrible bad form. 5.

▪ They need an exorcist to figure out what in the devil possessed them to return to their worst form from last season.

▪ We all now agree with Churchill's adage: democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.

▪ Wilful impediment of the sacred moves was not only ill-mannered, but the worst form of blasphemy.

bad hair day

▪ I felt miserable and realised the hair of my dreams had turned into the worst bad hair day you could imagine.

▪ Your basic bad hair day at the photo lab.

bad luck

▪ Bad luck, Paul. I'm sure you'll pass next time.

▪ It was just bad luck that she happened to get sick that day.

▪ Oh what a shame. Bad luck Chris.

▪ She seems to have nothing but bad luck when it comes to men.

▪ Talk about bad luck! Last night Ray's car was broken into for the second time this month.

▪ All that stood in the way of victory was a touch of bad luck.

▪ Despite their current run of bad luck, the Giants are drawing record crowds at Scottsdale Stadium.

▪ Is it because such a meeting would bring bad luck or is there another reason?

▪ It is your bad luck if the warren you choose to ferret is one of these.

▪ Only bad luck and poor finishing prevented Hibs from grabbing an equaliser.

▪ They believe it is bad luck.

bad/difficult/hard etc enough

▪ Even a Patel, probably a Bhatt if I looked hard enough.

▪ It's bad enough trying to fly with unequal line lengths; having an asymmetric kite can be most frustrating!

▪ She identified the problem not as trying too hard to live up to a domestic ideal but as not trying hard enough.

▪ Since the cold war ended in 1988, they have worked hard enough to produce some kind of an economic miracle.

▪ That was going to be difficult enough anyway.

▪ The ties with the past difficult enough to sever already.

▪ This would be bad enough if California prisons were full of nothing but Charles Mansons.

bad/good sailor

▪ Although he was a good sailor, Columbus was a bad governor.

▪ As a yacht delivery skipper he had to be a damn good sailor.

▪ Even the best sailors can be swept into them, apart from which they can cause all sorts of damage to your equipment.

▪ How he got there no-one knows, but he was a very good sailor and an even better artist.

▪ I have never been a good sailor, and kept to my bunk for the first part of the journey.

▪ Ironically I do not make a very good sailor.

▪ Turns out all of us are pretty good sailors.

bad/hard/tough luck

▪ Can't have that, can we, not on top of all your other hard luck.

▪ He felt that this little piece of bad luck might affect his whole day.

▪ I kept looking into the mirror and hating my bad luck, but there they were.

▪ There were lots of near misses: some great saves from both keepers, and sheer bad luck.

▪ Unfortunately, the gents had bad luck.

▪ You go up there with the wrong attitude and come out with worse luck than you had before.

bad/ill feeling

▪ There have been bad feelings between area residents and police.

▪ Even though Amelia participated so little in school activities, she harbored no ill feelings toward Hyde Park.

▪ I figure there had to be some bad feeling.

▪ I got a very bad feeling as we pitched into the bathroom and-fumbled for the mouthwash.

▪ I have bad feelings for the smugglers, though.

▪ It's got bad feelings for me, this room.

▪ It was the start of bad feeling between the two.

▪ Jane Blasio harbors no ill feelings toward Hicks.

▪ There is no bad feeling between us.

be good/bad news for sb

▪ House prices are very low, which is good news for first-time buyers.

▪ Although the licensing agreement is good news for Apple, some wonder whether it is too little, too late.

▪ As Ohio goes, so goes the nation, and that may be good news for President Clinton.

▪ Gordon Brown also promised Labour would be good news for big employers ... like the nearby Rover plant in Cowley.

▪ Growing demand for such equipment is good news for the helicopter's distributors McAlpine based at Kidlington in Oxfordshire.

▪ Paperwork for files has been reduced and the threshold for compliance raised; both changes are good news for filers.

▪ The latest financial results are good news for a company that has struggled for years.

▪ This is good news for the hotelier who is prepared.

▪ This theft can only be bad news for the preservation movement.

be in a good/bad etc place

be in sb's good/bad books

be meant to be good/excellent/bad etc

be your own worst enemy

▪ Many drivers are their own worst enemy -- driving too close, driving too fast, all the usual faults.

▪ My mother was her own worst enemy. She knew she was ill but she did nothing to help herself.

▪ In other words, we are our own worst enemy.

▪ My father was his own worst enemy.

▪ People are their own worst enemies.

▪ Players can be real snobs about names, too, so they are their own worst enemies.

▪ To what extent would she say she was her own worst enemy?

▪ You could say that Gilly is her own worst enemy.

better/harder/worse etc still

▪ And 245 specialty stock funds that focus on particular industries did better still, averaging a 6. 5 percent gain.

▪ But perhaps the early evening was better still?

▪ He didn't talk because he was afraid of losing the pole or, worse still, falling in.

▪ I started to hunt for a cheap restaurant or, better still, a snack shop.

▪ I thought that it would soon pass, and it did - for you to work harder still.

▪ Or better still, make a real talent show instead.

▪ Or better still, there was the village school practically next door!

▪ With hindsight, it would have better still to lock in a few more gains.

bring out the best/worst in sb

▪ Ingram always seems to bring out the best in his players.

▪ And Vince was obviously a great coach; he brought out the best in his team and whoever played him.

▪ But the Washington Wizards have a way of bringing out the best in their opponents.

▪ But, says Markert, there is something about one-way communication that can also bring out the worst in people.

▪ Campaigns seem to bring out the worst in Bob Dole.

▪ It brings out the best in us.

▪ Maybe something like they tend to bring out the best in us.

▪ So, to bring out the best in your cooking make sure you use the purest soy sauce, Kikkoman Soy Sauce.

▪ Yet it was not an unsuccessful attempt to bring out the best in his audience.

come off best/better/worst etc

▪ Alec Davidson, for example, was one of those who came off worst.

▪ Bullock comes off best because her complaining seems so valid.

▪ His foster-child comes off best, but in addition each of two nurses receives a tenth of his estate.

▪ It may seem, so far, that in terms of clearly defined benefits, the client comes off best out of the deal.

▪ Prior to that Meath had come off best when they accounted for Down in the 1990 league decider.

▪ The lightning, it seemed to Lydia, had undoubtedly come off best in that encounter.

▪ The problem is that history sometimes comes off better.

couldn't be better/worse/more pleased etc

do sb a good/bad turn

▪ She was only trying to do James a good turn.

do your/his/her/their worst

▪ Let her do her worst to reach him.

▪ Sometimes they successfully slowed or blocked the path of the conquistadores when these exploiters were out to do their worst.

every bit as important/bad/good etc

▪ Barbara was every bit as good as she sounded.

▪ Here, the Fund runs many family projects that are less well-known but doing work that is every bit as important.

▪ It is for this reason that good balanced design is every bit as important as meticulous craftsmanship.

▪ It takes no more than five minutes and tastes every bit as good at the oven-baked variety.

▪ The explanation is every bit as important as the numbers!

▪ The traffic was every bit as bad as had been predicted.

▪ Things every bit as bad happen there, too.

▪ To her horror it was every bit as bad as she'd feared, and possibly even a tiny bit worse.

expect/fear the worst

▪ Distillery boss Billy Hamilton fears the worst after Heath was assisted off in the second-half with a torn calf muscle.

▪ From what he has heard he fears the worst about the likelihood of a quick turnaround on the field.

▪ I knew I was being irrational but I began to fear the worst.

▪ Leading the mob assault into the fisherman's cabin, the pastor expects the worst.

▪ Only then did we begin to fear the worst.

▪ Quite frankly we expected the worst.

fall on hard/bad times

▪ At 21 she is set for stardom, but she still finds time for people who have fallen on hard times.

▪ Even by political standards, Gingrich very quickly fell on hard times.

▪ I assumed that if a person fell on hard times some one else in the wider family would rescue them.

▪ Interestingly, though, the bottom 10 includes many household names fallen on hard times.

▪ The Cambridge University Automobile Club had clearly fallen on hard times, too.

▪ The model cities program fell on hard times soon after it began.

▪ With the outbreak of war, the shop fell on harder times.

▪ Worse, because of Jack the father has fallen on hard times and must meet all kinds of debts.

fear the worst

▪ Fearing the worst, police have called in reinforcements to help control the crowds.

▪ After I hadn't heard from him for several hours, I began to fear the worst.

▪ Rescuers feared the worst for the men trapped in the mine.

▪ I knew I was being irrational but I began to fear the worst.

▪ Mind you, I feared the worst for this year's crop of pantomimes.

▪ Only then did we begin to fear the worst.

▪ Rumours about impending changes will occur anyway, and staff not fully informed are likely to fear the worst.

▪ Then they called police and stayed up all night -- fearing the worst.

for better or (for) worse

▪ The reality is that, for better or worse, the world of publishing has changed.

▪ All five, for better or worse, have received recent votes of confidence from their respective general managers or team presidents.

▪ And for better or worse, the new interactivity brings enormous political leverage to ordinary citizens at relatively little cost.

▪ And the consequences could be even more startling, for better or for worse.

▪ Decisions made in any of these places can hit our pocketbooks and our peace of mind, for better or for worse.

▪ He has toted the ball and the expectations, for better or worse.

▪ He was her husband ... for better or worse, he was her husband.

▪ Medical students in prolonged contact with junior doctors learn attitudes by example, for better or for worse.

▪ Today we know for better or for worse that cops, like doctors and priests, are merely human.

get off to a good/bad etc start

get/be given a bad press

get/have the worst of it

▪ I should not have exasperated him for I always have the worst of it.

good 'un/bad 'un/little 'un etc

good/bad/poor etc effort

▪ Batter Up Despite my best efforts, I could not stop eating the skinny fries that came with the combination.

▪ Dealing with these individual and family concerns will require the best efforts of mental health professionals.

▪ Football is a team game; offense and defense must work together to produce the best effort.

▪ However, objects decay despite our best efforts to conserve them.

▪ In spite of Holford-Walker's best efforts, the moran evaded his supervision.

▪ In spite of the rain's best efforts, I was pleased that I had been able to observe and film interesting mink behaviour.

▪ Or maybe they disapproved of or were indifferent to your best efforts.

▪ Peter Pike and Davern Lambert had good efforts before Musgrove completed his hat-trick with a good shot on the turn.

good/bad/poor etc seller

▪ Alcohol and western cigarettes are best sellers.

▪ Convinced it had a best seller on its hands, Random House came up with the unorthodox idea of relaunching the book.

▪ Drosnin is an investigative newspaper reporter who once wrote a best seller about Howard Hughes.

▪ His album Stars was last year's best seller and spawned a string of hit singles.

▪ It was the earliest best seller.

▪ Q.. What makes a book a best seller?

▪ The man who made a best seller out of a defamatory rant now wants to make a best seller out of repentance.

▪ Voice over Mrs De Winter is already tipped as being one of the best sellers this year.

good/bad/poor etc speller

▪ Only good spellers can spell easily orally.

▪ They give the good speller a chance to use his skill, but may depress a poor speller.

good/best/bad practice

▪ An annex citing examples of good practice would also be helpful.

▪ Carlesimo said Tuesday, adding that Marshall had just put in his best practice of camp.

▪ It is good practice to make a note of the client's telephone number on the file.

▪ Supporters of those with special needs should be exemplars of such good practice.

▪ The good practice presented in Table 2 and Appendix 3 addresses many of the factors important to the control of risk.

▪ There is a danger in the search for good practice of looking only at those schools with good academic records.

▪ These premises are often inadequate to support good practice.

▪ This week, for example, the permanent secretaries of all government departments will meet to discuss best practice in procurement.

have a high/low/good/bad etc opinion of sb/sth

▪ All I can say to that is that I have a higher opinion of your judgement than he has.

▪ He did not, in any case, have a high opinion of Santayana - an animus which Santayana reciprocated towards Eliot.

▪ Politicians generally have a low opinion of the press, just as the press generally has a low opinion of lawmakers.

▪ She does not seem to have a high opinion of married life.

he's/she's bad news

if the worst comes to the worst

in a good/an ill/a bad humour

in a new/different/bad etc light

▪ But, like the National Health Service, education could be seen in a different light.

▪ He found there a country whose characteristics cast the philosophy of birth control in a new light.

▪ I've seen him at a distance, I've seen him in bad light.

▪ I think we both saw young Mr Venn in new lights, and they were neither favorable nor unfavorable, just new.

▪ It makes you think about those sullen high schoolers in a different light, see their lives along a time line.

▪ So let us fantasise, and see industry and agriculture in a new light.

▪ They literally saw the whole world in a new light.

▪ They perch too far away in bad light.

in good nick/in bad nick etc

in good/bad/poor etc shape

▪ But if I was in better shape, I'd be sitting up there.

▪ He could still be in good shape.

▪ He said Texpool is in good shape now.

▪ If only he could tell them he was all right, in good shape, considering ....

▪ This saw the band in good shape, retaining their traditions of twisted passions and bleak emotional narratives.

▪ This year, however, Dole appears in good shape in both locations.

▪ Uptown was still in bad shape.

▪ We found he was in good shape, but had no food in his intestines.

just as good/bad/big etc

▪ And you men and half of Terminus as well are just as bad.

▪ At home it was just as bad.

▪ I would say the top teams are just as good, but the lesser teams have caught up a little bit.

▪ It was just as good a place as any to get away from Julius for a while.

▪ Now Allan Ahlberg has written two more stories about the same skeletons, and they're just as good.

▪ Or something else, just as bad, could happen.

▪ People accuse the whites of being prejudiced, but blacks can be just as bad.

▪ Virginia says sending them to a sister training program it has established at nearby Mary Baldwin College is just as good.

make a good/bad fist of sth

none the worse/better etc (for sth)

▪ Although the animal glowed rosy-pink, it appeared none the worse for its ordeal.

▪ I recovered, my mouth none the worse for it, after all.

▪ Peter's little pet was clearly none the worse for its time in the underworld.

not half bad

▪ The pizza here isn't half bad.

not so big/good/bad etc

▪ But so happen, one little boy not so good.

▪ But it's not so bad down here.

▪ Compared to how I feel, how I look is not so bad.

▪ It is not so good at knowing how to do it.

▪ My tongue not so good anyway.

▪ She began to think that perhaps village life was not so bad.

▪ Some years it was bad, other years not so bad.

▪ When he was hot, he was hot, but for me the whole thing was not so good.

plumb the depths (of despair/misery/bad taste etc)

sb's bark is worse than their bite

sb's worst fears were realized

▪ My worst fears were realized when I saw the test questions.

▪ His worst fears were realized and he was arrested.

show sb in a good/bad etc light

take a turn for the worse

▪ Stock prices have taken a turn for the worse.

the best of a bad lot/bunch

the biggest/worst etc (sth) yet

▪ And the worst was yet to come.

▪ Her third night here and it had been the worst one yet.

▪ No, the worst ... Yet is she listening now?

▪ That was the worst task yet, as Psyche saw when she approached the waterfall.

▪ The decision opens the biggest policy rift yet between Holyrood and Westminster.

▪ The two have returned from a disastrous holiday in Greecebut the worst is yet to come.

the worst

▪ Most of the girls were pretty mean, but Sabrina was the worst.

the worst of sth

▪ Against the far wall, shielded from the worst of the rain, were five bodies neatly laid out.

▪ And the worst of the caregivers were a disaster.

▪ And then there's you. ` ` Me? ` ` You're the worst of the lot.

▪ At this moment in history, however, the White House personifies the worst of political greed and excess.

▪ Black people, for example, need not imitate the worst of white competitive consumers.

▪ By the middle of the next afternoon, the worst of the headache was gone.

▪ On the eve of the council the worst of horrors was revealed.

▪ Would she ring the warning bell that cushioned the little fellow from the worst of it?

think the best/worst of sb

▪ Ellie's the type of person that always thinks the best of people.

▪ He thought the worst of Mitch and clearly thought that left to herself she would ring London at once.

▪ I was so ready to think the worst of him, she wailed inwardly.

▪ My immediate reaction, whether it be a man or a woman, is to think the worst of them.

▪ The prospect of Guy leaving, thinking the worst of her, was unbearable.

▪ Why should you think the worst of me?

▪ You always think the worst of me.

turn up like a bad penny

with (a) good/bad grace

▪ Admit temporary defeat with good grace, retreat, reconsider and wait.

▪ But he tucked his manuscript away with a good grace.

▪ He threw himself with good grace into everything, even this.

▪ Life is very crude, and bonnie Princes Street a dream, but we soldier on with a good grace.

▪ Mr Macmillan was, according to colleagues, prepared to give way with good grace when he could not carry the Cabinet.

▪ Sport only thrives if both parties play by the rules, and accept the results with good grace.

▪ They accept his habitual interruptions with good grace.

▪ This must have been irksome for them, but Mrs Webster accepted it as her war work with good grace.

worse luck

▪ Bad luck for Venus, worse luck for the 12,000 fans, but hey, what can you do?

▪ I have to go to secretarial school, worse luck.

▪ Nearly all gone now, worse luck, and the guv'nor's arrived to read the riot act.

▪ You're a bad agent and you're worse luck.

▪ You go up there with the wrong attitude and come out with worse luck than you had before.

worst of all

▪ Mike's so boring, and worst of all he never stops talking.

▪ And worst of all, the Hare got rid Of far more than the Tortoise did.

▪ And worst of all, their services are no longer in demand.

▪ And, worst of all, you don't remember who you are.

▪ But worst of all were the comparisons being made between Monty Clift and Jekyll and Hyde.

▪ Or, worst of all, exploding at work?

▪ Perhaps worst of all, there are those stressful situations where one is accustomed to turn to tobacco for support.

▪ The twelfth labor was the worst of all.

▪ To abuse hospitality was the most horrid thing; worst of all.

EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES

▪ bad apples

▪ Bad cat! Get off the table!

▪ bad housing conditions

▪ bad management

▪ a book full of bad language

▪ Critics blame the students' poor test performances on bad teaching.

▪ Did you have a bad day at work?

▪ Frank had a bad flu before Christmas.

▪ He's the worst driver I've ever seen.

▪ He had a bad influence on his younger brother.

▪ He had an especially bad time at boarding school.

▪ He plays one of the bad guys in the movie.

▪ I'm afraid I have some bad news.

▪ I'm very bad at remembering people's names.

▪ I was always really bad at French!

▪ If the weather's bad, we could go to the museum instead.

▪ In most movies, the bad guy gets caught in the end.

▪ In the 1980s, their cars had a bad reputation for reliability.

▪ Is there any crime worse than murdering a child?

▪ It's the worst book she's ever written.

EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS

▪ A sweetheart, this little lady, not bad legs either.

▪ But the fuel crisis was not all bad news for riders.

▪ But when the cable came it was bad news.

▪ But you were bad with your eyes all the same, I remember you were in a darkened room for days.

▪ The first, last year, was canceled because of bad weather.

▪ The sharpest rise in shop sales for almost 12 years encouraged hopes that the worst of the recession is over.

▪ This was often a direct consequence of bad diet: too much matooke and nothing else.

II.noun

PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES

good/bad timekeeper

a bad/difficult/sticky/rough patch

▪ Even when they knew he was going through a bad patch they would continue to deliver dangerous back-passes to him.

▪ Every team goes through a bad patch.

▪ Evode has gone through a sticky patch.

▪ Having hit a bad patch, financially, I decided I must try for some paid work with my knitting machine.

▪ Ruefully, she recalled her pleasure at the way the book, after a difficult patch, had begun to develop.

▪ Sometimes I am a real power pack of efficiency; then I hit a bad patch.

▪ Talk about hitting a bad patch.

▪ The Royal Family is certainly going through a rough patch.

a bad/poor sport

▪ He told everyone Norm was a hothead, a poor sport, a disgrace as a Catholic, and a lousy catcher.

▪ It is not good for a player to be considered a poor sport.

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.

a fate worse than death

▪ I knew that Grandma's visit would be a fate worse than death.

▪ After all, she didn't know him, and a fate worse than death might just be awaiting her.

▪ It certainly wasn't because he was trying to save her from a Fate Worse than Death.

▪ There are various Pelagias who are known as penitent harlots or virgin martyrs who died to escape a fate worse than death.

▪ We've even growled at the horse, and threatened it with a fate worse than death, but to no avail!

a good/bad etc shot

▪ But Nogai's a good shot.

▪ Ed Kelley was a good shot.

▪ He made a good shot from there and holed a three-foot putt for a quadruple-bogey eight.

▪ If I hit a bad shot, I try to minimize its effect.

▪ Klingler made it clear at the end of 1996 that he wanted a better shot at moving up the depth chart.

▪ That much was the least expected of a hunter who had made a bad shot.

▪ They have a better shot at claiming the governorship.

▪ Tom played a bad shot out of the bunker, and he does no more than charge straight at this press guy.

a good/bad judge of sth

▪ Sarah's not a very good judge of character.

▪ And for all his imagination, he was not a good judge of character on limited acquaintance.

▪ But Anya's a better judge of character than she used to be, back in the old homeland.

▪ He's also a good judge of a quick run.

▪ He was a good judge of character, hated hypocrisy, and had no time for conceit.

▪ I didn't protest as it was his fence officially, and he was supposed to be a good judge of torque.

▪ It was not that he was too sure of himself simply that he was a good judge of the possible.

▪ Munnings, he told reporters, was a better judge of horses than paintings.

at (the) worst

▪ Many drivers feel their job is unpleasant at best, and dangerous at worst.

▪ Developing these required equations is at best difficult and at worst nearly impossible.

▪ Him, with him: the worst man in the worst place at the worst time.

▪ If we drop a tin can probably nothing will happen; at the worst we may make a small dent.

▪ In most cases doing a course of any kind will, at worst, just be a small waste of time.

▪ Naturally, it happened at the worst possible time.

▪ Patient and neutral stares at worst.

▪ The first assumption of the Census Bureau, therefore, must be viewed as fatuous at worst, naive at best.

▪ Up until then I had sometimes seen writing as at best a compulsion and at worst a sickness.

at your best/worst/most effective etc

bad faith

▪ And some councils are acting in bad faith.

▪ Guinness was accused of bad faith, in particular for failing to adhere to promises made in the official offer documents.

▪ I can't help feeling, therefore, that your critical position relies on a heavy dose of bad faith.

▪ I think a leap of bad faith was made.

▪ In Anisminic, Lord Reid gave the following examples: It may have given its decision in bad faith.

▪ In the present case the plaintiff did not allege, nor did the judge find, any bad faith by the defendants.

▪ School officials can lose this qualified privilege if they act in bad faith or without regard for whether the statements are true.

▪ What intrigues me about programmes like You've Been Framed is their bad faith.

bad form

▪ He asked Billy what he thought the worst form of execution was.

▪ Self-interest was the worst sin and slaveholding was the worst form of self-interest.

▪ Tainting the courts with politics is very bad form, but apparently irresistible.

▪ The most terrible bad form. 5.

▪ They need an exorcist to figure out what in the devil possessed them to return to their worst form from last season.

▪ We all now agree with Churchill's adage: democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.

▪ Wilful impediment of the sacred moves was not only ill-mannered, but the worst form of blasphemy.

bad hair day

▪ I felt miserable and realised the hair of my dreams had turned into the worst bad hair day you could imagine.

▪ Your basic bad hair day at the photo lab.

bad luck

▪ Bad luck, Paul. I'm sure you'll pass next time.

▪ It was just bad luck that she happened to get sick that day.

▪ Oh what a shame. Bad luck Chris.

▪ She seems to have nothing but bad luck when it comes to men.

▪ Talk about bad luck! Last night Ray's car was broken into for the second time this month.

▪ All that stood in the way of victory was a touch of bad luck.

▪ Despite their current run of bad luck, the Giants are drawing record crowds at Scottsdale Stadium.

▪ Is it because such a meeting would bring bad luck or is there another reason?

▪ It is your bad luck if the warren you choose to ferret is one of these.

▪ Only bad luck and poor finishing prevented Hibs from grabbing an equaliser.

▪ They believe it is bad luck.

bad/difficult/hard etc enough

▪ Even a Patel, probably a Bhatt if I looked hard enough.

▪ It's bad enough trying to fly with unequal line lengths; having an asymmetric kite can be most frustrating!

▪ She identified the problem not as trying too hard to live up to a domestic ideal but as not trying hard enough.

▪ Since the cold war ended in 1988, they have worked hard enough to produce some kind of an economic miracle.

▪ That was going to be difficult enough anyway.

▪ The ties with the past difficult enough to sever already.

▪ This would be bad enough if California prisons were full of nothing but Charles Mansons.

bad/good sailor

▪ Although he was a good sailor, Columbus was a bad governor.

▪ As a yacht delivery skipper he had to be a damn good sailor.

▪ Even the best sailors can be swept into them, apart from which they can cause all sorts of damage to your equipment.

▪ How he got there no-one knows, but he was a very good sailor and an even better artist.

▪ I have never been a good sailor, and kept to my bunk for the first part of the journey.

▪ Ironically I do not make a very good sailor.

▪ Turns out all of us are pretty good sailors.

bad/hard/tough luck

▪ Can't have that, can we, not on top of all your other hard luck.

▪ He felt that this little piece of bad luck might affect his whole day.

▪ I kept looking into the mirror and hating my bad luck, but there they were.

▪ There were lots of near misses: some great saves from both keepers, and sheer bad luck.

▪ Unfortunately, the gents had bad luck.

▪ You go up there with the wrong attitude and come out with worse luck than you had before.

bad/ill feeling

▪ There have been bad feelings between area residents and police.

▪ Even though Amelia participated so little in school activities, she harbored no ill feelings toward Hyde Park.

▪ I figure there had to be some bad feeling.

▪ I got a very bad feeling as we pitched into the bathroom and-fumbled for the mouthwash.

▪ I have bad feelings for the smugglers, though.

▪ It's got bad feelings for me, this room.

▪ It was the start of bad feeling between the two.

▪ Jane Blasio harbors no ill feelings toward Hicks.

▪ There is no bad feeling between us.

be good/bad news for sb

▪ House prices are very low, which is good news for first-time buyers.

▪ Although the licensing agreement is good news for Apple, some wonder whether it is too little, too late.

▪ As Ohio goes, so goes the nation, and that may be good news for President Clinton.

▪ Gordon Brown also promised Labour would be good news for big employers ... like the nearby Rover plant in Cowley.

▪ Growing demand for such equipment is good news for the helicopter's distributors McAlpine based at Kidlington in Oxfordshire.

▪ Paperwork for files has been reduced and the threshold for compliance raised; both changes are good news for filers.

▪ The latest financial results are good news for a company that has struggled for years.

▪ This is good news for the hotelier who is prepared.

▪ This theft can only be bad news for the preservation movement.

be in a good/bad etc place

be in sb's good/bad books

be meant to be good/excellent/bad etc

be none the worse for sth

be your own worst enemy

▪ Many drivers are their own worst enemy -- driving too close, driving too fast, all the usual faults.

▪ My mother was her own worst enemy. She knew she was ill but she did nothing to help herself.

▪ In other words, we are our own worst enemy.

▪ My father was his own worst enemy.

▪ People are their own worst enemies.

▪ Players can be real snobs about names, too, so they are their own worst enemies.

▪ To what extent would she say she was her own worst enemy?

▪ You could say that Gilly is her own worst enemy.

be your own worst enemy

▪ In other words, we are our own worst enemy.

▪ My father was his own worst enemy.

▪ People are their own worst enemies.

▪ Players can be real snobs about names, too, so they are their own worst enemies.

▪ To what extent would she say she was her own worst enemy?

▪ You could say that Gilly is her own worst enemy.

better/harder/worse etc still

▪ And 245 specialty stock funds that focus on particular industries did better still, averaging a 6. 5 percent gain.

▪ But perhaps the early evening was better still?

▪ He didn't talk because he was afraid of losing the pole or, worse still, falling in.

▪ I started to hunt for a cheap restaurant or, better still, a snack shop.

▪ I thought that it would soon pass, and it did - for you to work harder still.

▪ Or better still, make a real talent show instead.

▪ Or better still, there was the village school practically next door!

▪ With hindsight, it would have better still to lock in a few more gains.

bring out the best/worst in sb

▪ Ingram always seems to bring out the best in his players.

▪ And Vince was obviously a great coach; he brought out the best in his team and whoever played him.

▪ But the Washington Wizards have a way of bringing out the best in their opponents.

▪ But, says Markert, there is something about one-way communication that can also bring out the worst in people.

▪ Campaigns seem to bring out the worst in Bob Dole.

▪ It brings out the best in us.

▪ Maybe something like they tend to bring out the best in us.

▪ So, to bring out the best in your cooking make sure you use the purest soy sauce, Kikkoman Soy Sauce.

▪ Yet it was not an unsuccessful attempt to bring out the best in his audience.

come off best/better/worst etc

▪ Alec Davidson, for example, was one of those who came off worst.

▪ Bullock comes off best because her complaining seems so valid.

▪ His foster-child comes off best, but in addition each of two nurses receives a tenth of his estate.

▪ It may seem, so far, that in terms of clearly defined benefits, the client comes off best out of the deal.

▪ Prior to that Meath had come off best when they accounted for Down in the 1990 league decider.

▪ The lightning, it seemed to Lydia, had undoubtedly come off best in that encounter.

▪ The problem is that history sometimes comes off better.

come off worst

▪ Alec Davidson, for example, was one of those who came off worst.