adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a desirable property
▪ It is a desirable property with a south-facing garden.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
also
▪ It is also desirable to have the possibility of shifting staff between design and operational duties.
▪ In the case of companies ambitious to succeed, scope for development and expansion was also desirable.
▪ Homogeneity is also desirable in the meaning of lines and arrows.
▪ It is also desirable that the sun should shine in the new room.
▪ Shelter trees are also desirable, especially in the summer.
always
▪ A careful record, with corroboration, is always desirable in such extreme circumstances.
▪ This may be achieved by correspondence, but a meeting may be necessary, and is almost always desirable.
▪ Steel toe protection is needed if heavy loads are handled and ankle support is always desirable.
as
▪ Innovation is seen as desirable because it invariably increases efficiency, and makes for higher profits.
▪ How did they come to see such jobs as desirable?
▪ Diversity among opinions is as desirable as diversity among species.
clearly
▪ In other cases early appointment is clearly desirable so that the guardian can attend the first directions appointment.
▪ Some of the new law, like the Gideon case, represented clearly desirable reform.
▪ In addition to being consistent over time, it is clearly desirable that indicators used within a single year be consistent.
even
▪ As he grew to manhood, Vologsky had accepted that state of being as both normal and even desirable.
▪ Actually, one-paragraph letters are fine, even desirable when appropriate.
▪ Or that a comprehensive test ban might not be possible - even desirable - at some point in the future.
▪ Illich asked whether such education was even desirable, let alone possible.
▪ It is permissible, even desirable, to edit and rephrase the statement so that it is clear and well structured.
▪ Unlike intarsia, it is not necessary and often not even desirable to wrap the two weaving yarns.
▪ Freud claimed to be committed to science, and he thought a physiologically based psychology was possible, even desirable.
highly
▪ Pure white cotton is, however, highly desirable for the evening.
▪ Only 28 percent rated a video on-demand service as highly desirable.
▪ Other authorities have held back before embarking on such highly desirable projects because of that uncertainty in the law.
▪ Moreover, the news audience is a highly desirable one.
▪ In general most of these clauses are not highly desirable in short form standard conditions.
▪ Now it has just been seen that the laws of physics are efficiently ordered so as to produce highly desirable states.
▪ But it was highly desirable from the point of view of the individual soldiers on both sides.
▪ Objections are frequently raised by affected personnel, and methods to input documents automatically are thus highly desirable.
however
▪ More tea appeared, champagne hardly seemed fitting, however desirable.
▪ But however desirable in marriage, these values are not essential causes or explanations of it.
▪ Implementing the Cockcroft recommendations, however desirable that might be, was seen as difficult.
▪ There are, however, considerable problems with such approaches, however desirable radical adult educators may consider them to be.
less
▪ Ford V6 conversions are intrinsically even less desirable - though worth considering as a cheap and reliable engine.
▪ Here, your to-do list lives on its own page instead of in the calendar, a less desirable setup.
▪ Each household was given a number of strips scattered between the desirable and less desirable fields.
▪ Bowman, however, was transferred to a less desirable school; he sued, claiming that the transfer violated his rights.
▪ The latter's captaincy gave him some pleasant social summers at camps near Brighton but rather less desirable autumn duties elsewhere.
more
▪ As he went into the garden, Nick thought she had never looked more beautiful or more desirable.
▪ Indeed, our scenarios are nothing more than invitations to everyone to write better, more plausible, even more desirable outcomes.
▪ Registration in Part A is more desirable in that the protection offered is stronger.
▪ Bianca, the younger, more desirable daughter has swarms of suitors.
▪ She looked more desirable than ever; now, closing his aching eyes behind their glasses, he felt lust rise.
▪ How perfect Cammy had become in his memory, how much more desirable for having stepped behind a locked door!
▪ Particular regions, towns, areas of the countryside, are wealthier and more desirable to live in than others.
▪ Prescription Statements about politics often include claims or assumptions that certain choices and actions are more desirable than others.
most
▪ Lopez, who has insured her assets for £660 million, has been voted the world's most desirable woman.
▪ I live on Nob Hill in San Francisco, one of the most desirable urban addresses in the world.
▪ For most purposes a rectangular distribution is the most desirable because it provides the appropriate mix of youthful enthusiasm and ageing experience.
▪ She says that most desirable street corners already have one or more of the two chains.
▪ At another point, education seemed the most desirable goal.
▪ The most desirable on-line capability was voting in elections, with half the sample in favor.
▪ The most desirable proportion of height to length being 9 to 10.
▪ As mentioned previously, monotherapy is always the most desirable.
so
▪ Not since Greta all those years ago had a woman seemed to him so desirable.
socially
▪ Simultaneously, tax credits can target state support to approved groups, and promote socially desirable economic behaviour.
▪ A number of grants and incentives are available for projects which are socially desirable, but not commercially viable without support.
▪ It seems plausible that one of two things may happen, neither of which is socially desirable.
▪ Not because holy poverty was impossible, but because it just wasn't a socially desirable objective.
▪ In welfare economics we are taught that to internalize externalities by appropriate contracts is socially desirable.
▪ It may impose levies and mandate subsidies for environmentally or socially desirable reasons.
▪ The inexorable logic does not, however, establish that the result is morally or socially desirable.
▪ In sum, special interests of politically effective groups rather than socially desirable interests triumph.
very
▪ Eventual guaranteed success is often a very desirable aspect, especially for young or slow learners.
▪ These characteristics make it a very desirable agent for use in young people with any of the above seizure types.
▪ More than two thirds of 1,344 respondents considered a basement a desirable feature, with a third considering them very desirable.
▪ But later a demand for storable rocket propellants and life-support fluids could make the chemical processing of these gases very desirable.
▪ That is a very desirable objective.
▪ You're a very desirable woman.
▪ He supposed you got bored with too much of it, but just at the moment it seemed very desirable.
■ NOUN
behaviour
▪ The reward is given only if a desirable behaviour occurs and the punisher is given only if undesirable behaviour occurs.
▪ Most reformers in 1900 wished to achieve both, though they differed upon definitions of desirable behaviour.
▪ Should the child lose the reward it earns for a desirable behaviour?
▪ It may happen that the child is so naughty that it ends up never being rewarded for the desirable behaviour.
▪ Reinforcers are rewards given to strengthen desirable behaviour.
▪ That is their sole purpose - to strengthen desirable behaviour.
▪ It is also vital that a targeted desirable behaviour is taught to the child to compete with the punished behaviour.
▪ The tokens are given only on completion of a specified desirable behaviour.
end
▪ It is just that so many desirable ends are incompatible.
▪ The reality is that party platforms are considerably more complex, with choices between desirable ends deliberately obscured.
▪ What citizens expect above all of governments is that they should achieve desirable ends.
▪ But it is the means by which these desirable ends are to be achieved that must shock and dismay.
▪ Face-to-face situations provide the context, objectives spell out the desirable end and behaviours are the means.
goal
▪ At another point, education seemed the most desirable goal.
▪ A lot of them failed to reach that desirable goal.
▪ But the assumption that reconciliation is a desirable goal in situations of this kind must be queried.
▪ The desirable goals of accurate reading of handwriting or indeed recognition of spoken words have almost been achieved.
objective
▪ Mr Lawson is right to argue that, given time, this desirable objective will be achieved.
▪ Solidarity and diversity are both desirable objectives.
▪ Because there are so many desirable objectives to achieve for the convalescent patient the outcome of rehabilitative measures is difficult to quantify.
▪ Not because holy poverty was impossible, but because it just wasn't a socially desirable objective.
▪ That is a very desirable objective.
outcome
▪ For a developing country in particular this might be a desirable outcome in the case of non-essential goods.
▪ Indeed, our scenarios are nothing more than invitations to everyone to write better, more plausible, even more desirable outcomes.
▪ Can he give any information as to how arrangements such as job sharing have grown in the civil service to facilitate that desirable outcome?
quality
▪ Roll and Ross argue that these portfolios may have desirable qualities for the potential investor.
▪ Write a short paragraph on the desirable qualities of a good receptionist. 2.
▪ It also did away with the need for bias adjustment on the output devices - a most desirable quality.
▪ Method: separate essential and desirable qualities.
▪ Reliable cause of death statistics are woefully lacking for developing countries and of less than desirable quality for many developed ones.
state
▪ Or since these desirable states can be put into words, do they belong only to the left hemisphere?.
▪ Now it has just been seen that the laws of physics are efficiently ordered so as to produce highly desirable states.
▪ Identification with one's community is, though not morally obligatory, a desirable state, at least if that community is reasonably just.
woman
▪ Lopez, who has insured her assets for £660 million, has been voted the world's most desirable woman.
▪ If seducing desirable women was so easy, why had he not done it before?
▪ You're a very desirable woman.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Oak Hills is one of the area's most desirable neighborhoods.
▪ Ray was still in good shape and far more desirable than most men his age.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Although it is desirable for the clearinghouses to be able to distribute or lend material, it is not essential.
▪ Flats with shared front entrances are not particularly desirable either, even if they do have entry phones fitted.
▪ In sheer bulk of biomass, organisms without brains or even without central nervous systems far outnumber those possessing these desirable features.
▪ It is neither socially nor economically desirable that convicted employees should generally be dismissed.
▪ No international solutions with mud are possible, or indeed desirable.
▪ O.K. This is the desirable weight range for your health.
▪ Sometimes it is necessary and desirable to leave hand-drawn and handwritten input as it is.
▪ This latter proposition is not ideal as the more rampant plants will crowd out the less vigorous and often more desirable subjects.