adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a decisive victory
▪ The battle was a decisive victory for the US.
decisive action (=that has a big effect on the way something develops)
▪ We are urging the international community to take decisive action on debt relief.
the decisive/determining factor (=the one that has the biggest effect)
▪ The support of middle-income voters was the decisive factor in the election.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
more
▪ Important though this visit was as a political signpost, a far more decisive meeting was to follow.
▪ Public religion was not just talk; it issued in action more decisive than the kind George Washington supported.
▪ It will be more messy, more dangerous, but perhaps more decisive.
▪ Much stronger pressures and probably more decisive action was necessary in these circumstances.
▪ The evidence from shrines, temples and churches erected to meet the needs of literate societies is even more decisive.
most
▪ Of the smaller parties, the Workers' Party was the most decisive in favouring the change.
▪ Scottsdale voters took the most decisive action last May, approving a sales-tax increase to buy land in the McDowell Mountains.
▪ Then we enter the famous city of Gettysburg, site of the last and most decisive battle of the Civil War.
▪ It is doubtless the affective aspect of the human soul that is most decisive in our behavioural choices.
▪ She would then telephone Miranda, the most decisive of the three sisters.
■ NOUN
action
▪ No one else could have done this as well as Lanfranc with his orderly mind and power of decisive action.
▪ Conversely, there might be too little capacity for decisive action in a cabinet system when there is no stable majority.
▪ David Oakenson says that if guilt is proved then decisive action should be taken.
▪ Suddenly Newland Archer felt himself impelled to decisive action.
▪ When will the Government take decisive action and end the hell of a mess in that section of industry?
▪ By streamlining operations, they took the proper, decisive action.
▪ Much stronger pressures and probably more decisive action was necessary in these circumstances.
▪ Scottsdale voters took the most decisive action last May, approving a sales-tax increase to buy land in the McDowell Mountains.
battle
▪ Then we enter the famous city of Gettysburg, site of the last and most decisive battle of the Civil War.
▪ The invasion would then be easy, but the hope of luring the enemy fleet into decisive battle would be gone.
▪ A hundred thousand soldiers seems to have been the maximum any Hellenistic state was able to gather together for a decisive battle.
▪ Moves towards them prove that reform is not a lost cause, but that it needs champions and decisive battles.
▪ The aim which obsessed military thinking was the winning of a decisive battle soon after the outbreak of war.
▪ With the decisive battle only a few days off, it was engaged in gathering all available intelligence regarding enemy activity.
▪ Unlike old-fashioned narrative history, art has no decisive battles, no international treaties, and no changes of government.
battleground
▪ First, Engler comes from a decisive battleground of the 1996 election, the industrial Midwest.
blow
▪ This was especially true as regards the period of contraction or depression, and the Great Depression dealt a decisive blow.
break
▪ President Bill Clinton will represent a decisive break from 12 years of Republican Party rule.
effect
▪ Increasingly officials helped to make policy, sometimes with decisive effect.
▪ Volley guns need never fire a shot to have a decisive effect on the game.
▪ And last night he eluded his two markers to decisive effect although they shadowed him well for much of the match.
factor
▪ Now it might be argued that ontologically the decisive factor is that on opening his eyes he found again two distinct individuals.
▪ Yet extending family is such a decisive factor in the success of working parents, they really can not afford their reluctance.
▪ The decisive factor in many of these wrangles may be the judiciary.
▪ In the future, aircraft will be the decisive factor.
▪ However well you try to equip yourself, qualifications are unlikely to be the decisive factor.
▪ Ultimately, though, human beings are the decisive factor.
▪ The death of his wife in 1849 was probably a decisive factor in Hill's decision to quit.
▪ Gradually it emerged that his concern for his country was the decisive factor in his changed attitude.
goal
▪ Miller's third and decisive goal came from a McAlonen free-kick which found Simon White in position to score.
▪ The decisive goal in the dying seconds of the first half was a beauty.
▪ Celtic deserved their win, achieved through decisive goals from the Nicholas-Creaney partnership.
▪ The decisive goal came after 57 minutes when Holdsworth's centre was missed by Mimms who was under pressure from Nogan.
▪ He supplied the cross for Scott's decisive goal.
influence
▪ The method used can have a decisive influence on the ranking of the proposals.
▪ In numerous races, evangelical voters were of decisive influence in deciding the outcome.
▪ Consequently, developments in the international financial structure have had a decisive influence on how wealth-creating activities are divided among nations.
▪ Moreover, it was an event that had a decisive influence on the way macro-policy evolved.
▪ Control is widely defined as the ability to exercise a decisive influence over a company by any means.
▪ Thus, they have a decisive influence over the results in most of the elections.
moment
▪ Would-be lovers belch or hiccup at decisive moments.
▪ It was a decisive moment in his career.
▪ For St Francis there were a number of decisive moments, such as when he saw the leper.
▪ But group mind seems to be a liability in the decisive moments of touchdown, where there is no room for averages.
▪ And so the experienced surgeon is able to apply his real concentration at the decisive moment.
▪ What he is doing is laying the groundwork for the decisive moment and preparing his getaway.
part
▪ We have played a decisive part in the development of the Community over the past decade.
▪ On the whole, though, the cases in which covert taping of conversations plays a decisive part are few.
▪ This onslaught won financial concessions but not the decisive part in the colonization of New Zealand which the company sought.
▪ Lugh was going to be playing a decisive part in this victory.
result
▪ If anything, Karpov had the better of these three draws, but at least decisive results were somehow once again in the air.
role
▪ The Women's Cooperative Guild played a decisive role in helping to secure for Labour the newly-enfranchised female vote.
▪ These organizations played a decisive role in forging patient links with the outside world.
▪ The arrangement of the oceans in relation to the continents plays a decisive role in creating and sustaining life on Earth.
▪ Interest rate levels also can play a decisive role in determining currency values.
▪ Nothing was resolved and Athelstan felt he had failed to take a decisive role.
▪ He could and did play a decisive role.
▪ So accumulation played the decisive role in maintaining favourable demand conditions.
▪ In the other cases it played a facilitating rather than a decisive role.
shift
▪ Taken together, these changes represented a decisive shift in favour of the secular power.
▪ And such changes mark a decisive shift away from local democracy.
▪ It marks a decisive shift on the part of the Sri Lankan government to sacrifice self-reliance for the possibility of increased foreign revenues.
step
▪ People who aren't impulsive think through the consequences of their actions before taking decisive steps.
▪ The next decisive step was the discovery of the chemical nature of genes.
▪ The move would be a decisive step towards the separation of the 999 service from routine ambulance work.
▪ Constitutional meddling has been rejected, but his first move should be a decisive step towards fair votes.
▪ So you must expect one last showdown that's followed by a decisive step in a new direction.
victory
▪ Hugo Chavez won a decisive victory over Francisco Arias in his bid for a six-year term as Venzuela's president.
▪ Nixon, meanwhile, spoke and acted as if the United States had won a decisive victory under his command.
▪ As it happens the outcome, in my view, is a decisive victory for the individual organism.
▪ William of Orange is seen to have worked the decisive victory at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.
▪ He took four of six rounds and yet without ever making his supporters believe that a decisive victory was on the cards.
▪ At last the moment to silence all the doubters with a decisive victory arrived.
▪ He wanted forces capable of quick, decisive victories against diplomatically isolated opponents.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ a decisive election victory
▪ the decisive battle of the war
▪ This country needs strong, decisive leadership.
▪ We are still waiting for Jim to make up his mind. I wish he would be more decisive.
▪ When asked about the possibility, his answer was a decisive "no."
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Gradually it emerged that his concern for his country was the decisive factor in his changed attitude.
▪ However well you try to equip yourself, qualifications are unlikely to be the decisive factor.
▪ I thought I might win something decisive with her.
▪ In any race during the previous four years that would have been decisive.
▪ In connection with the depiction of home makers as competent and decisive, the reader is offered two important insights here.
▪ In numerous races, evangelical voters were of decisive influence in deciding the outcome.
▪ It found that had Costa Rica been consulted, its opinion would have been decisive, precisely the situation envisaged in 1858.
▪ The door was opened by the gipsy girl who with a decisive movement turned the handle and pulled it wide.