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What is "matter"

Crossword clues for matter

matter
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
matter
I.noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a matter of common sense (=something that requires no more than common sense)
▪ Not driving too fast is just a matter of common sense.
a matter of luck (=something that depends on chance)
▪ Winning is a matter of luck.
a matter of public recordformal (= something that has been written down so that anyone can know it)
▪ His salary is a matter of public record.
a matter of routine
▪ This briefing is a matter of routine whenever a new minister takes office.
a matter of...indifference to (=I do not care)
▪ Whether you stay or leave is a matter of total indifference to me .
a matter/point/question of honour (=something you feel you must do because of your moral beliefs)
▪ To my mum, paying bills on time is a point of honour.
a matter/subject of controversy
▪ The right age to vote is a matter of controversy.
as a matter of principle (=because of moral beliefs about right and wrong)
▪ As a matter of principle one should never yield to terrorism.
be a matter for debate (=be something that people should discuss)
▪ The future of the police force is a matter for public debate.
be a matter for speculation (=be unknown)
▪ The precise nature of the deal is a matter for speculation.
be a matter of concern
▪ Elderly people in particular feel that crime is a matter of concern for them.
be a matter of conscience (=something that you must make a moral judgment about)
▪ Whether you vote or not is a matter of conscience.
be a matter of debate (=be something that people have discussed)
▪ The effectiveness of the government’s policy has been a matter of fierce debate.
be a matter of personal preference (=be something that you can choose, according to what you like)
▪ Which one you decide to buy is just a matter of personal preference.
clarify issues/a statement/matters etc
▪ Could you clarify one or two points for me?
▪ Reporters asked him to clarify his position say exactly what his beliefs are on welfare reform.
crux of the matter
▪ The crux of the matter is how do we prevent a flood occurring again?
dark matter
deal with an issue/matter/question
▪ New laws were introduced to deal with the issue.
delicate matter
▪ There’s something I have to speak to you about – it’s a delicate matter.
discuss the matter/issueformal (= discuss a subject or problem)
▪ The two leaders met to discuss the issue further.
fiscal matter
▪ a fiscal matter
front matter
grey matter
have no choice in the matter
▪ The village people had no choice in the matter.
in a matter of seconds (=in a very short time)
▪ At least 30 shots were fired in a matter of seconds.
not that it mattered (=it did not matter)
▪ Janice had lost some weight, not that it mattered.
pressing problem/matter/need etc
▪ Poverty is a more pressing problem than pollution.
printed matter
resolve an issue/matter/question
▪ Has the issue been resolved yet?
settle a question/matter
▪ It is the area of pricing which may settle the question of which to buy.
sth is a matter of opinion (=used to say that you disagree, or that people disagree about something)
▪ "He’s a very nice man." "That’s a matter of opinion," thought Sam.
sth is a matter of taste (=different people have different opinions about what is good or right)
▪ Which of the two methods you use is largely a matter of taste.
straightforward matter/task/process etc
▪ For someone who can’t read, shopping is by no means a straightforward matter.
subject matter
▪ The movie has been rated ‘R’ due to adult subject matter.
substantive matters/issues
▪ The State Department reported that substantive discussions had taken place with Beijing.
take the matter up
▪ The hospital manager has promised to take the matter up with the member of staff involved.
take...matter further
▪ The police do not propose to take the matter further.
the end of the matter
▪ If you think that’s the end of the matter, you’re mistaken.
the truth of the matter
▪ The truth of the matter is that we don’t know what really happened.
To complicate matters further
▪ To complicate matters further, differences exist as regards legal systems, trade customs, and language.
trivial problem/matter/complaint etc
▪ We were punished for the most trivial offences.
turn the matter/problem/responsibility etc over to sb
▪ I’m turning the project over to you.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
different
▪ But when you use it, it's an entirely different matter!
▪ But the saying and the doing are different matters and are often worlds apart.
▪ But narrative tone is a different and affirmative matter.
▪ In antiquity it was believed the different classes of animals were composed of different kinds of matter.
▪ That would have been a very different matter.
▪ But having to make three straight pars to survive a cut is a different matter.
▪ Onstage, though, it is a different matter.
▪ However, in the workplace, where productivity thrives on positive relationships, it can be a different matter.
financial
▪ The mystery surrounding the identity of property owners can be partly explained by a typical Victorian reticence concerning financial matters.
▪ Carl was in charge of all the financial and business matters.
▪ Dennis was a genuine enthusiast for financial matters.
▪ And sales leadership in turn meant their agenda-setting obligations specifically for financial and business matters.
▪ He's the manager, and looks after all financial matters.
▪ Control over financial matters Constitutionally, Parliament has control over taxation and expenditure.
▪ The importance and complexity of financial matters have caused special procedures to be evolved to deal with them.
▪ Similarly the redundancy package was geared to match the relocation package so that staff would not base their decision on financial matters.
important
▪ At the Kleiber household in Poplar, these dramatic events passed unnoticed: Ernest and Rosie had more important matters in mind.
▪ He wasted no mental effort on the problem, for this morning he had more important matters on his mind.
▪ There is, however, the equally important matter of safeguarding mineral deposits.
▪ My position on this important matter has nothing whatsoever to do with the rational, of course.
▪ Seriously, though, it is important that the matter of advertising is raised every so often, for a number of reasons.
▪ We moved on to other more important matters.
▪ Some of the important matters that the hon. Gentleman raises have been the concern of several Select Committees.
▪ All night long, serious, important matters were addressed; vital information was exchanged.
legal
▪ There was also very little demand for help on legal matters and employment issues.
▪ He said this was a legal matter.
▪ He became a priest in 1284, aiding his parishioner5 in both spiritual and legal matters.
▪ Full time welfare officers represent individuals at pension tribunals, and are able to offer professional advice on legal matters and housing.
▪ He did research on legal matters for Carmine and knew a great deal about his holdings and operations.
▪ Most oriental codes deal with legal matters only: morals and religion belong elsewhere.
organic
▪ This turned the organic matter into liquid bitumen, which squeezed into pores and fractures in the rock.
▪ Researchers have seen their kind before in sewers and other places where organic matter is highly concentrated.
▪ When the manures rot down they add organic matter to the soil, which turns into humus.
▪ Urban refuse is 75 percent organic matter.
▪ Plants with a fibrous root system, creating plenty of organic matter, do most to improve the soil structure.
▪ Make sure the soil in your shade garden is rich in organic matter.
▪ The long roots reach the tank bottom, where the medium should be rich in organic matter, such as plant detritus.
▪ Humus: The end product of decomposed organic matter such as leaves.
other
▪ The Bill does not deal with other key matters.
▪ Perhaps the United States itself would benefit in the long run from a more flexible policy on sterling and other matters.
▪ And the other matters that fall to the conveyancer to arrange will remain unchanged.
▪ Earth not only grew by aggregation from a cloud of particles, but by collisions with other cosmic matter.
▪ Some had hair, tissue or other matter attached to them.
▪ There is just one other matter on which I shall be grateful for information.
▪ He reserves the right to take part in discussions on other matters.
▪ The other preliminary matter is that the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 does not tell you whether the seller is liable.
personal
▪ This is particularly important when discussing personal matters, such as some one's care plan.
▪ For years, I would natter on, whether it was about business or personal matters.
▪ The nature of this will vary greatly depending on a rose's ancestry, while its appreciation is a very personal matter.
▪ Behavior change is a personal matter.
▪ This is not a personal matter, it's a matter that concerns your business integrity.
▪ It was a personal matter that was taken care of before I was elected to the City Council.
▪ And to every one it's a personal matter.
▪ And I made the mistake of having her type up all the tapes that I was sure contained no personal matter.
private
▪ He was less inclined to be so, it seemed, about private matters.
▪ That is strictly a private matter between a priest and a sinner.
▪ Officials there are believed to be dealing with it as a private matter.
▪ Child-rearing is considered a private matter, and there is no intervention unless a child is abused or neglected.
▪ Boy sensed that this was a private matter, something to think about but not talk about.
▪ Many of them look at it as a private family matter.
▪ On the one hand, bringing up children is seen as a purely private matter.
▪ Some organizations consider their employment policies to be a private matter of contract between the company and its employees.
serious
▪ The seeking of business success is far too difficult and serious a matter to be done in a cosy way.
▪ Inquiry is a serious matter and should be done boldly, whether applied to innovation or ponderous theoretical matter.
▪ Losing a lamb or two was not unusual, but a dead calf was a serious matter.
▪ A politicized game is made out of serious matters to scholars and the field.
▪ But I must resist the temptation to treat so serious a matter with levity.
▪ This was clearly a serious matter.
▪ It will be a most serious matter.
▪ They judged only minor cases; more serious matters were referred to the higher courts.
simple
▪ Although the optimum phase resistance can be calculated, in practice it is a fairly simple matter to determine the optimum experimentally.
▪ Washing her clothes was no simple matter with Hazel there.
▪ The lodging of a compensation form, a simple enough matter, here required a respect for ritual.
▪ This in turn made it a simple matter to adapt Watt's engine to provide rotary motion.
▪ It is not a simple matter of informing people what to do as you seem to think.
▪ After that it is a simple matter of pumping and reeling it to the net.
▪ Becoming a hooligan within the Rowdies group is not a simple matter.
▪ Yet defining capacity in banking is no simple matter.
subject
▪ Marcus Leatherdale's photographs look downright mainstream by comparison, though his subject matter may include the bizarre and the theatrically far-out.
▪ The poignancy of that piece is the circumstance of its composition, not its subject matter.
▪ Unlike their Soviet counterparts, few western texts indulged in lengthy discussion of a work's subject matter.
▪ Rothko would have justly replied that it was precisely in order to convey humanist content that he had dispensed with subject matter.
▪ The subject matter should make a technical contribution to the state of the art.
▪ The subject matter and the medium towards which the release is aimed are perhaps the two most important as to think about.
▪ Category of contract: all contracts for sale or hire purchase of goods. Subject matter of contract: all goods.
▪ Indeed the subject matter of many of Mercer's plays - which was often Mercer - could just as well have been Goodwin.
■ VERB
complicate
▪ Inevitable political interest in local development will also continue to complicate matters.
▪ This does not invalidate Freud's approach, but it does complicate matters more than he suggests.
▪ Reviews instances in which the Agency's activities have complicated matters or deterred developers from going ahead.
▪ The other valentines were a more complicated matter.
▪ To complicate matters some cells behave linearly under some conditions and non-linearly under others.
▪ For many novices, the mechanics of sending e-mail are a complicated matter.
consider
▪ I am not saying that the country should not consider the matter.
▪ But before we venture down the road to actual accusation, we must consider the matter very carefully.
▪ The Committee draws attention to any draft which it considers to raise a matter of political or legal importance.
▪ After age thirty-five, contraceptive responsibility was considered a matter of mutual responsibility.
▪ The more she considered the matter, the more she believed that Rose Cottage was as much a victim as she.
▪ During my California days, under the influence of puberty, we did not consider such matters.
▪ The Committee will consider the matter further.
▪ It was a matter of faith; and of imagination, a thing Ralph had never considered before.
deal
▪ The Bill does not deal with other key matters.
▪ Better to sign Hebron now, Netanyahu said, and deal with these other matters afterward.
▪ If at some stage we entered into a single currency, we should have to deal with a different matter.
▪ As you know, few files dealing with intelligence matters are immediately available.
▪ We must deal with the matter carefully.
▪ I shall deal with that matter more fully in my later remarks.
▪ Dudek was surprised at the request; it was not a course designed to deal with such matters.
decide
▪ The alternative would be for the Court of Appeal to decide all the matters before it.
▪ It was finally decided to refer the matter to the departmental assemblies.
▪ Under the Bill there will be problems deciding whether the matter has local or national significance.
▪ Although his ministers were never permitted to decide matters on their own account, Victor Amadeus delegated wide administrative powers to them.
▪ It is for individual members and their firms to decide what subject matter is useful and relevant to their needs.
▪ Yet of myself I can not decide the matter.
▪ One tactic she has used is to decide matters outside the formal Cabinet, either in committees or in informal groups.
▪ George Pataki asked Hill to give the governor some time to decide the matter.
discuss
▪ But then goes on to discuss the matter purely in electoral terms.
▪ He issued a brief statement late Monday noting that he had discussed the matter with Rep.
▪ Members of local branches meet in the evenings to discuss social and business matters.
▪ They would possibly discuss such matters.
▪ Mr Justice Kirkwood also banned the loquacious Kilshaws from discussing the matter with anyone outside the court.
▪ But later Monday the district attorney said he had not discussed the matter with the coroner since his election in December.
▪ It is likely that Celsus discussed the matter at greater length, and with greater clarity.
▪ I backed into the house to discuss the matter with Narendra.
pursue
▪ It is capable of extension, but we shall not pursue the matter here.
▪ I regret that they were unable to pursue the matter any further.
▪ Anxious to avoid further difficulty, Harriet did not pursue the matter.
▪ She wouldn't put it past him but in the brilliant afternoon heat she wasn't inclined to pursue the matter.
▪ There was no need to pursue the matter any further prior to arrest.
▪ If you feel upset by an apparent unfairness, pursue the matter through the grievance procedure.
▪ He would not risk bringing himself and the Kharkov base into disrepute by pursuing the matter any further.
raise
▪ In view of the Government's unsatisfactory reply, I intend to raise that matter again on the Adjournment.
▪ He had not demurred when Helms raised the matter before the closed-door meeting.
▪ It seemed in the end there was little else to do but actually to raise the matter again with Mr Farraday.
▪ The Committee draws attention to any draft which it considers to raise a matter of political or legal importance.
▪ I do not apologise for raising the matter on more than one occasion in interventions and again in my own speech.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
(just) out of interest/as a matter of interest
be another thing/matter
▪ And that is another matter entirely.
▪ But for many of us, reading is another thing altogether.
▪ But the administration that has now begun work in Washington will be another matter altogether.
▪ Defending a U. S. Senate seat is another matter.
▪ Indeed it can: but whether the argument would carry any weight is another matter entirely.
▪ Real art is another matter and, despite recent genuflections towards Rembrandt, a rarity becoming rarer.
▪ Whether I understood them was another matter.
▪ Whether they will be allowed to evict their unwelcome, unsavoury, tenants, from belfries and elsewhere, is another matter.
broach the subject/question/matter etc
▪ But what was still troubling her was the fact that she had still not broached the subject of Janice.
▪ He broached the matter carefully while Marshall put a match to some logs in the grate.
▪ I never broached the subject with him again.
▪ It was half a year, he thought, since she had last broached the subject of his bachelor status.
▪ It was nine o'clock and they had been driven in by the mosquitoes before he broached the subject of the night before.
▪ Now, popular magazines regularly broach the subject.
▪ Popular magazines now broach the subject of mental illness, while the government is encouraging research into mental health.
▪ When, two months later, Father van Exem broached the subject, the Archbishop was actually quite upset about the idea.
confuse the issue/matter/argument etc
▪ His reply was inpart denial of the criticisms, and inpart an attempt to change the issue or confuse the matter.
▪ Making comparisons between brains is a very risky business because there are confounding variables to confuse the issue.
▪ Perceptions, such as hers, distort the truth and confuse the issue.
▪ The Catholic arguments confuse the issue, but this time, for all the wrong reasons, the Pope is infallible.
▪ The politicians, on the lookout for arguments to extend their authoritarianism, jumped at this opportunity to confuse the issue.
▪ This attempt to confuse the issue went unanswered, and Santa Anna continued his preparations to advance on the capital.
▪ This will only serve to confuse the issue.
foreign body/matter/object
▪ Make sure you remove all foreign matter from the wound.
▪ A group of prisoners was carefully picking foreign bodies from a mound of rice before cooking.
▪ Even for the last remaining superpower, domestic issues, not foreign matters, dominate national elections.
▪ Eyes inflamed from trauma or after foreign bodies have been removed.
▪ Lombardy was stopped and arrested on suspicion of rape by force; rape with a foreign object and false imprisonment.
▪ Nothing but the thrill of seeing your name in print, alongside your gut-wrenching tale of finding foreign objects in your food.
▪ Tell everyone to watch out for a foreign body?
▪ The resulting pellets are termed Type 90 reflecting the high percentage of hop material present compared to water and foreign matters.
▪ We describe two cases of accidental aspiration of a foreign body after use of a metered dose inhaler.
it's (only/just) a matter/question of time
▪ But they believe it's only a matter of time before the disease crosses the county boundary.
▪ If he hasn't already killed somebody, then it's only a matter of time.
▪ They think it's only a matter of time before he breaks.
let the matter rest
▪ However, she can rest assured that we will not let the matter rest.
▪ I was going to knock for I was still intrigued by him but Benjamin called me so I let the matter rest.
▪ In her opinion anybody with any sense would let the matter rest there.
▪ Innocent maintained that Philip should have gone to Rome for absolution but for the moment he let the matter rest.
▪ Its opponents, however, were unlikely to let the matter rest where it stood in September 1932.
▪ She simply refused to let the matter rest where it.was.
mind over matter
▪ But mind over matter, I can do it if I really want to, and I will.
▪ He says it's just a case of mind over matter.
▪ There are limits, in other words, to mind over matter.
no laughing matter
▪ Dole and his staff know that age discrimination is no laughing matter.
▪ But Dole and his staff know the age issue is no laughing matter.
▪ But it is no laughing matter.
▪ But the issue of physicians and their handwriting is no laughing matter.
▪ I am a gout sufferer, and it's no laughing matter.
▪ It is no laughing matter, however.
▪ The second Fleet Street sensation was no laughing matter.
▪ They looked as though they knew already that life was no laughing matter.
▪ This Jell-O-head business is no laughing matter.
not see that it matters
pursue the matter/argument/question etc
▪ Anxious to avoid further difficulty, Harriet did not pursue the matter.
▪ I regret that they were unable to pursue the matter any further.
▪ If you feel upset by an apparent unfairness, pursue the matter through the grievance procedure.
▪ It is capable of extension, but we shall not pursue the matter here.
▪ She wouldn't put it past him but in the brilliant afternoon heat she wasn't inclined to pursue the matter.
▪ There was no need to pursue the matter any further prior to arrest.
the fact (of the matter) is
▪ And the fact is Jimi just turned me on more than anybody else, for his music.
▪ But the fact is that none of these are visions of what I recognize as life.
▪ But the fact is that the way we live our lives often assumes a belief about them, one way or another.
▪ But the fact is, it never should have come to that.
▪ Doing the sums Knowing the facts is the first priority.
▪ Let's be realistic, the fact is crime does pay.
▪ So parent power does work, but the fact is it shouldn't ever have to come to that.
▪ Yet the fact is that most adolescents are using drugs, and our drug education programs fail to address that reality.
the nub of the problem/matter/argument etc
▪ Even so, some brain cells were still working, as I stared inwardly at the nub of the problem.
▪ It sounds perfectly reasonable, but you will perceive that here is the nub of the matter.
▪ This is the nub of the matter.
▪ This, however, was the nub of the problem.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Dietary fibre makes waste matter from the food we eat pass through our bodies quickly.
▪ Foreign affairs were not the only matters we discussed.
▪ In order to decompose, all vegetable matter needs supplies of nitrogen.
▪ Rick wasn't particularly interested in financial matters.
▪ The matter is being argued and discussed in families up and down the country.
▪ The first item on the agenda today is the matter of public transportation.
▪ the forces exerted between particles of matter
▪ They are investigating an area of space that contains more than the usual amount of matter.
▪ This meeting is being held to deal with the serious matter of possible racism in our hiring practices.
▪ We should discuss the matter ourselves.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A foggy reading of foggy matter.
▪ His maudlin drunkenness was not helping matters.
▪ I agree with the hon. Gentleman on this matter.
▪ I appeal to you, Mr. Speaker, to allow us to have a debate on this matter today.
▪ Lovelock's own position on the continuum has been a matter of great interest.
▪ No matter how it worked, the idea raises ethical concerns for the medical profession, two physician-legislators said.
▪ Nobody ever treats me right, no matter how hard I try.
▪ These matters can be tackled in the laboratory. 2 Contamination during or after sampling.
II.verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
else
▪ For those who care about baseball, nothing else mattered on Saturday.
▪ I do not remember where I was, only what I was looking for, as if nothing else mattered.
hardly
▪ But it hardly matters to most of the city's motorists, who are unlikely to be going anywhere.
▪ He was finally caught, and it hardly mattered who had caught him.
▪ This would hardly matter if we still lived in those dim and distant days when nobody took sport too seriously.
▪ Once networked, it hardly matters whether you are on the floor below, or across town.
▪ It hardly mattered, since that route led to the docks he had already seen.
▪ It hardly matters, because examples of bias are there in abundance, and some take fairly systematic forms.
▪ The question whether they make a picture more or less luminous hardly matters.
▪ But, for most, the money hardly mattered.
less
▪ For martial artists it mattered less what form you studied than that you made it a way of life.
▪ It will matter less that the person tackles it as an employee or an external vendor than that the person solves it.
▪ This would matter less if the rest of the year looked easy.
▪ Probably, when our feelings are consistent, the words, perhaps stumbling and inadequate, matter less.
▪ It mattered less what the company clerks and rubber plantation foremen in second class might feel.
▪ With each day she spent in the sun these crucial questions mattered less.
▪ Yet bias in the major media matters less that it did in the NixonAgnew era.
little
▪ It matters little that consumers are still cautious.
▪ On Andean haciendas, it matters little to the man who tills the land whether the product increases.
▪ He didn't often actually handle a painting, but that mattered little to him.
▪ It matters little, the loss is mine.
▪ That the subject was in fact normally accorded Cinderella status mattered little to the many who objected to its being there at all.
▪ To neo-Keynesians it matters little what local authorities spend on revenue account.
▪ What might happen when eventually they arrived at Wrens' Quarters, Ardneavie, mattered little.
▪ In this instance it mattered little.
most
▪ This matters most in fuzzy, creative processes such as product development.
▪ That story is a metaphor for what matters most to me as I help children to write and to live like writers.
▪ Household chores will present a bit of a problem, of course, but the children matter most.
▪ We know what matters most to them.
▪ The message was a public one, but the person it mattered most to was Diana.
▪ Which people who matter most to performance believe that they must change?
▪ The enthusiasm and militancy of 1919 no longer existed in the areas and industries where it had mattered most.
▪ After all, quality matters most in a compelling sage.
much
▪ You've already got Oswin, so it doesn't really matter much.
▪ None of that would matter much if the material could withstand the scrutiny.
▪ In the past, this would not have mattered much, provided one drug was eventually a winner.
▪ Yet he no longer matters much to his national party.
▪ The departmental affiliation of such a course doesn't much matter provided that it is taught by people with relevant research experience.
▪ Not that it matters much at the moment.
▪ The particular colour pattern of a Heliconius presumably does not matter much, so long as it is memorable to the local birds.
▪ The art department still had some fun, but it no longer mattered much off campus.
really
▪ It does not really matter so long as we accept both points of view.
▪ Does it really matter that much in the post-Cold War period?
▪ It didn't really matter which direction it came from.
▪ The first thing he had learned was that nobody really mattered.
▪ Do everything you can to avoid mishaps by being adequately prepared but ask yourself again - does it really matter?
▪ If Greg Norman hardly ever wins the big one, does it really matter to him?
▪ You've already got Oswin, so it doesn't really matter much.
▪ This time the alleged transgressions involve a violation of constitutional protections that really matter in a democracy.
where
▪ So it doesn't matter where you work.
▪ By wandering aimlessly, all places became equal, and it no longer mattered where he was.
▪ It really doesn't matter where you look.
▪ But it does not matter where issues of capital punishment and deterrence are concerned.
▪ And it doesn't matter where I am, I can call him up.
▪ If a reader comprehends the synthesis, then indeed it does not matter where one commences to read.
▪ Doesn't matter where you hit some one.
▪ What does it matter where one lives?
■ NOUN
deal
▪ Money mattered, mattered a great deal to us.
▪ The details clearly matter a great deal to biologists interested in cloning, and we should look at them.
▪ If a president is paranoid like Nixon, changes like this matter a great deal.
▪ It does not matter a great deal which method is used.
money
▪ The exact quantities of money don't matter.
▪ Create and focus energy and meaningful language because they are the scarcest resources during periods of change. Money and talent matter.
▪ He came from a world where money mattered.
▪ But truly it was not the money that mattered.
▪ The money didn't matter any more.
▪ But, for most, the money hardly mattered.
▪ Good Money didn't matter. Money mattered.
▪ Making money was mostly what mattered.
thing
▪ In a stadium-driven sports world, the only thing that matters is the stadium.
▪ And in any case, he could control the things that mattered very well from there.
▪ Well, the things that really mattered.
▪ It was the only thing that mattered to him, and drew all his concentration and effort.
▪ But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much.
things
▪ And in any case, he could control the things that mattered very well from there.
▪ But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much.
▪ Sanity insists that certain things do matter infinitely more than others.
▪ He drove her back to Greystones, still talking fluently of things that mattered not at all.
▪ There was no sense in worrying, he thought, no sense in troubling himself with things that did not matter.
■ VERB
seem
▪ They turn out a little patchy, but it does not seem to matter to the fish.
▪ It did not seem to matter that she had borne him a son.
▪ It seemed that nothing mattered to her now.
▪ The lack of political drama did not seem to matter to most voters Saturday.
▪ For our purposes here that may not seem to matter very much.
▪ It doesn't seem to matter that the reader has my name and could easily get my address and phone number.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
(just) out of interest/as a matter of interest
be another thing/matter
▪ And that is another matter entirely.
▪ But for many of us, reading is another thing altogether.
▪ But the administration that has now begun work in Washington will be another matter altogether.
▪ Defending a U. S. Senate seat is another matter.
▪ Indeed it can: but whether the argument would carry any weight is another matter entirely.
▪ Real art is another matter and, despite recent genuflections towards Rembrandt, a rarity becoming rarer.
▪ Whether I understood them was another matter.
▪ Whether they will be allowed to evict their unwelcome, unsavoury, tenants, from belfries and elsewhere, is another matter.
foreign body/matter/object
▪ Make sure you remove all foreign matter from the wound.
▪ A group of prisoners was carefully picking foreign bodies from a mound of rice before cooking.
▪ Even for the last remaining superpower, domestic issues, not foreign matters, dominate national elections.
▪ Eyes inflamed from trauma or after foreign bodies have been removed.
▪ Lombardy was stopped and arrested on suspicion of rape by force; rape with a foreign object and false imprisonment.
▪ Nothing but the thrill of seeing your name in print, alongside your gut-wrenching tale of finding foreign objects in your food.
▪ Tell everyone to watch out for a foreign body?
▪ The resulting pellets are termed Type 90 reflecting the high percentage of hop material present compared to water and foreign matters.
▪ We describe two cases of accidental aspiration of a foreign body after use of a metered dose inhaler.
it's (only/just) a matter/question of time
▪ But they believe it's only a matter of time before the disease crosses the county boundary.
▪ If he hasn't already killed somebody, then it's only a matter of time.
▪ They think it's only a matter of time before he breaks.
mind over matter
▪ But mind over matter, I can do it if I really want to, and I will.
▪ He says it's just a case of mind over matter.
▪ There are limits, in other words, to mind over matter.
the fact (of the matter) is
▪ And the fact is Jimi just turned me on more than anybody else, for his music.
▪ But the fact is that none of these are visions of what I recognize as life.
▪ But the fact is that the way we live our lives often assumes a belief about them, one way or another.
▪ But the fact is, it never should have come to that.
▪ Doing the sums Knowing the facts is the first priority.
▪ Let's be realistic, the fact is crime does pay.
▪ So parent power does work, but the fact is it shouldn't ever have to come to that.
▪ Yet the fact is that most adolescents are using drugs, and our drug education programs fail to address that reality.
the nub of the problem/matter/argument etc
▪ Even so, some brain cells were still working, as I stared inwardly at the nub of the problem.
▪ It sounds perfectly reasonable, but you will perceive that here is the nub of the matter.
▪ This is the nub of the matter.
▪ This, however, was the nub of the problem.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Does it matter if I bring my own car?
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ It matters what you wear to an evening of live theater.
▪ Moreover, the only properties he would allow to matter were ones that could be dealt with by the science of mathematics.
▪ None of the muddle in her room mattered.
▪ They both said it didn't matter.
▪ Welcome to the sorry state of the apology, when regrets seem to come most readily when they matter the least.
▪ Why did the place matter so much?
Related phrases:
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Matter

Matter \Mat"ter\, n. [OE. matere, F. mati[`e]re, fr. L. materia; perh. akin to L. mater mother. Cf. Mother, Madeira, Material.]

  1. That of which anything is composed; constituent substance; material; the material or substantial part of anything; the constituent elements of conception; that into which a notion may be analyzed; the essence; the pith; the embodiment.

    He is the matter of virtue.
    --B. Jonson.

  2. That of which the sensible universe and all existent bodies are composed; anything which has extension, occupies space, or is perceptible by the senses; body; substance.

    Note: Matter is usually divided by philosophical writers into three kinds or classes: solid, liquid, and gaseous. Solid substances are those whose parts firmly cohere and resist impression, as wood or stone. Liquids have free motion among their parts, and easily yield to impression, as water and wine. Gaseous substances are elastic fluids, called vapors and gases, as air and oxygen gas.

  3. That with regard to, or about which, anything takes place or is done; the thing aimed at, treated of, or treated; subject of action, discussion, consideration, feeling, complaint, legal action, or the like; theme. ``If the matter should be tried by duel.''
    --Bacon.

    Son of God, Savior of men! Thy name Shall be the copious matter of my song.
    --Milton.

    Every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge.
    --Ex. xviii. 22.

  4. That which one has to treat, or with which one has to do; concern; affair; business.

    To help the matter, the alchemists call in many vanities out of astrology.
    --Bacon.

    Some young female seems to have carried matters so far, that she is ripe for asking advice.
    --Spectator.

  5. Affair worthy of account; thing of consequence; importance; significance; moment; -- chiefly in the phrases what matter? no matter, and the like.

    A prophet some, and some a poet, cry; No matter which, so neither of them lie.
    --Dryden.

  6. Inducing cause or occasion, especially of anything disagreeable or distressing; difficulty; trouble.

    And this is the matter why interpreters upon that passage in Hosea will not consent it to be a true story, that the prophet took a harlot to wife.
    --Milton.

  7. Amount; quantity; portion; space; -- often indefinite.

    Away he goes, . . . a matter of seven miles.
    --L' Estrange.

    I have thoughts to tarry a small matter.
    --Congreve.

    No small matter of British forces were commanded over sea the year before.
    --Milton.

  8. Substance excreted from living animal bodies; that which is thrown out or discharged in a tumor, boil, or abscess; pus; purulent substance.

  9. (Metaph.) That which is permanent, or is supposed to be given, and in or upon which changes are effected by psychological or physical processes and relations; -- opposed to form.
    --Mansel.

  10. (Print.) Written manuscript, or anything to be set in type; copy; also, type set up and ready to be used, or which has been used, in printing.

    Dead matter (Print.), type which has been used, or which is not to be used, in printing, and is ready for distribution.

    Live matter (Print.), type set up, but not yet printed from.

    Matter in bar, Matter of fact. See under Bar, and Fact.

    Matter of record, anything recorded.

    Upon the matter, or Upon the whole matter, considering the whole; taking all things into view; all things considered.

    Waller, with Sir William Balfour, exceeded in horse, but were, upon the whole matter, equal in foot.
    --Clarendon.

Matter

Matter \Mat"ter\, v. t. To regard as important; to take account of; to care for.

He did not matter cold nor hunger.
--H. Brooke.

Matter

Matter \Mat"ter\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Mattered; p. pr. & vb. n. Mattering.]

  1. To be of importance; to import; to signify.

    It matters not how they were called.
    --Locke.

  2. To form pus or matter, as an abscess; to maturate. [R.] ``Each slight sore mattereth.''
    --Sir P. Sidney.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
matter

"to be of importance or consequence," 1580s, from matter (n.). Related: Mattered; mattering.

matter

c.1200, materie, "subject of thought, speech, or expression," from Anglo-French matere, Old French matere "subject, theme, topic; substance, content, material; character, education" (12c., Modern French matière), from Latin materia "substance from which something is made," also "hard inner wood of a tree" (source also of Portuguese madeira "wood"), from mater "origin, source, mother" (see mother (n.1)). Or, on another theory, it represents *dmateria, from PIE root *dem-/*dom- (source of Latin domus "house," English timber). With sense development in Latin influenced by Greek hyle, of which it was the equivalent in philosophy.\n

\nMeaning "physical substance generally, matter, material" is early 14c.; that of "substance of which some specific object is made or consists of" is attested from late 14c. That of "piece of business, affair, activity, situation, circumstance" is from late 14c. From mid-14c. as "subject of a literary work, content of what is written, main theme." Also in Middle English as "cause, reasons, ground; essential character; field of investigation."\n

\nMatter of course "something expected" attested from 1739. For that matter attested from 1670s. What is the matter "what concerns (someone), the cause of the difficulty" is attested from mid-15c. To make no matter "be no difference to" also is mid-15c.

Wiktionary
matter

n. 1 Substance, material. 2 # (context physics English) The basic structural component of the universe. Matter usually has mass and volume. 3 # (context physics English) Matter made up of normal particles, not antiparticles. (Non-antimatter matter). 4 # A kind of substance. 5 # Written material (especially in books or magazines). 6 # (context philosophy English) Aristotelian: undeveloped potentiality subject to change and development; formlessness. ''Matter'' receives (term form English), and becomes (term substance English). 7 A condition, subject or affair, especially one of concern. vb. (context intransitive English) To be important.

Related phrases:
WordNet
matter

v. have weight; have import, carry weight; "It does not matter much" [syn: count, weigh]

matter

  1. n. that which has mass and occupies space; "an atom is the smallest indivisible unit of matter" [syn: substance]

  2. a vaguely specified concern; "several matters to attend to"; "it is none of your affair"; "things are going well" [syn: affair, thing]

  3. some situation or event that is thought about; "he kept drifting off the topic"; "he had been thinking about the subject for several years"; "it is a matter for the police" [syn: topic, subject, issue]

  4. a problem; "is anything the matter?"

  5. (used with negation) having consequence; "they were friends and it was no matter who won the games"

  6. written works (especially in books or magazines); "he always took some reading matter with him on the plane"

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Matter (novel)

Matter is a science fiction novel from Iain M. Banks set in his Culture universe. It was published on 25 January 2008.

Matter was a finalist for the 2009 Prometheus Award.

Matter (disambiguation)

Matter is the substance of which objects are made.

Matter may also refer to:

  • Matter (philosophy), a concept in philosophy
  • Matter (novel), a 2008 novel by Iain M Banks
  • Matter (venue), a 2008-2010 venue in the O London
  • Matter (video game), a cancelled video game for the Xbox 360
  • Matter Valley, a Swiss valley containing Zermatt
  • Matter (magazine), an online science publication
  • Matter (album), a 2016 album by synthpop artist St Lucia
Matter (philosophy)

Matter is the substrate from which physical existence is derived, remaining more or less constant amid changes. The word "matter" is derived from the Latin word māteria, meaning "wood" in the sense "material", as distinct from "mind" or "form".

Matter (venue)

Matter was a London music venue and nightclub that opened in September 2008, after three years of planning. A 2,600 capacity live music venue and nightclub, it was the second project for owners Cameron Leslie and Keith Reilly, founders of the London club Fabric. Matter is the third venue to open at The O in south-east London.

Matter housed several visual installations, a sound system of some 200 speakers and a version of Fabric's 'BodySonic' dance floor, the 'BodyKinetic' floor.

Matter's music policy was set by London promoter Will Harold. It featured three bimonthly residencies, Hospitality ( Hospital Records), RAMatter ( RAM Records) and FWD>>/Rinse ( Rinse FM).

Architect William Russell, of Pentagram, was commissioned to design the venue with partner Angus Hyland, who was responsible for the branding.

In May 2010 the venue announced it would close for the summer due to financial difficulties suffered as a consequence of continued delays with the TfL upgrade of the Jubilee Line.

The venue formerly housing Matter became a nightclub called Proud2, which opened in March 2011.

The date it ceased to be Proud2 and became Building Six was around August 2013.

Matter

Before the 20th century, the term matter included ordinary matter composed of atoms and excluded other energy phenomena such as light or sound. This concept of matter may be generalized from atoms to include any objects having mass even when at rest, but this is ill-defined because an object's mass can arise from its (possibly massless) constituents' motion and interaction energies. Thus, matter does not have a universal definition, nor is it a fundamental concept in physics today. Matter is also used loosely as a general term for the substance that makes up all observable physical objects.

All the objects from everyday life that we can bump into, touch or squeeze are composed of atoms. This atomic matter is in turn made up of interacting subatomic particles—usually a nucleus of protons and neutrons, and a cloud of orbiting electrons. Typically, science considers these composite particles matter because they have both rest mass and volume. By contrast, massless particles, such as photons, are not considered matter, because they have neither rest mass nor volume. However, not all particles with rest mass have a classical volume, since fundamental particles such as quarks and leptons (sometimes equated with matter) are considered "point particles" with no effective size or volume. Nevertheless, quarks and leptons together make up "ordinary matter", and their interactions contribute to the effective volume of the composite particles that make up ordinary matter.

Matter exists in states (or phases): the classical solid, liquid, and gas; as well as the more exotic plasma, Bose–Einstein condensates, fermionic condensates, and quark–gluon plasma.

For much of the history of the natural sciences people have contemplated the exact nature of matter. The idea that matter was built of discrete building blocks, the so-called particulate theory of matter, was first put forward by the Greek philosophers Leucippus (~490 BC) and Democritus (~470–380 BC).

Matter (album)

Matter is the second studio album by New York-based act St. Lucia. It was released on January 29, 2016 via Columbia Records.

Matter (video game)

Matter is a cancelled video game for the Xbox 360. It would have used the Kinect peripheral. It was originally announced at E3 2012; the game was set in a universe similar to that of Tron, with futuristic, industrial graphics, and featured small, metallic balls as the main characters. Originally, filmmaker Gore Verbinski, director of Pirates of the Caribbean and Rango, was attached to the project.

The game was announced to be cancelled about a year later. While reasons for the cancellation are unknown, a poster on the NeoGAF forums hinted at mismanagement and the studio's unfamiliarity of game development as the main problem.

Matter (magazine)

Matter is an online publication specializing in long-form articles about science, technology, medicine and the environment. The site was launched in November 2012 with "Do No Harm", a 7,800-word article about a controversial treatment for a rare neurological condition. Matter now publishes a single story each month.

The founders, journalists Bobbie Johnson and Jim Giles, funded the project by raising $140,000 on Kickstarter in March 2012. The success of the campaign generated discussion about new business models in journalism. Under the Matter business model, long-form articles were sold individually, much as book publishers sell individual books. Matter stories cost 99c and were available at the Matter website and in Amazon's Kindle Singles store. Matter also operates a membership scheme. Members are invited to Q&As with Matter authors and are able to take part in the publication's collaborate commissioning process.

In April 2013, Johnson and Giles announced that Matter had been acquired by Medium, a new publishing platform established by Twitter founder Ev Williams. Johnson and Giles said that neither Matter nor Medium had any plans to change the publication's business model or editorial focus.

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "matter".

So they abode a little, and the more part of what talk there was came from the Lady, and she was chiefly asking Ralph of his home in Upmeads, and his brethren and kindred, and he told her all openly, and hid naught, while her voice ravished his very soul from him, and it seemed strange to him, that such an one should hold him in talk concerning these simple matters and familiar haps, and look on him so kindly and simply.

Their origins are a matter of record, in the merger nineteen years ago of the depraved Temple of Abraxas with a discredited house of surgical software, Frewin Maisang Tobermory.

However, the Supreme Court declined to sustain Congress when, under the guise of enforcing the Fourteenth Amendment by appropriate legislation, it enacted a statute which was not limited to take effect only in case a State should abridge the privileges of United States citizens, but applied no matter how well the State might have performed its duty, and would subject to punishment private individuals who conspired to deprive anyone of the equal protection of the laws.

And this is the Absolute Ugly: an ugly thing is something that has not been entirely mastered by pattern, that is by Reason, the Matter not yielding at all points and in all respects to Ideal-Form.

Matter, then, thus brought to order must lose its own nature in the supreme degree unless its baseness is an accidental: if it is base in the sense of being Baseness the Absolute, it could never participate in order, and, if evil in the sense of being Evil the Absolute, it could never participate in good.

Nor can we, on the other hand, think that matter is simply Absolute Magnitude.

But the point is that, where there once appeared a single and absolutely unbridgeable gap between the world of matter and the world of lifea gap that posed a completely unsolvable problemthere now appeared only a series of minigaps.

Eucharist the priest perfects the sacrament by merely pronouncing the words over the matter, so the mere words which the priest while absolving pronounces over the penitent perfect the sacrament of absolution.

Whenever the leaves remain inflected during several days over seeds, it is clear that they absorb some matter from them.

The glands of Drosera absorb matter from living seeds, which are injured or killed by the secretion.

Besides the glands, both surfaces of the leaves and the pedicels of the tentacles bear numerous minute papillae, which absorb carbonate of ammonia, an infusion of raw meat, metallic salts, and probably many other substances, but the absorption of matter by these papillae never induces inflection.

The experiments proving that the leaves are capable of true digestion, and that the glands absorb the digested matter, are given in detail in the sixth chapter.

The secretion with animal matter in solution is then drawn by capillary attraction over the whole surface of the leaf, causing all the glands to secrete and allowing them to absorb the diffused animal matter.

Utricularia,-it is probable that these processes absorb excrementitious and decaying animal matter.

These probably sink down besmeared with the secretion and rest on the small sessile glands, which, if we may judge by the analogy of Drosophyllum, then pour forth their secretion and afterwards absorb the digested matter.