adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
clear/precise
▪ The head teacher gave us a precise definition of the school’s aims.
exact/precise
▪ It's about 10 metres by 8 metres - I don't know the exact measurements.
▪ This special equipment allows us to make very precise measurements.
exact/precise/true nature
▪ The exact nature of the problem is not well understood.
fine/minute/precise detail (=very exact detail)
▪ We've been through all the arrangements for the wedding in minute detail.
precise location
▪ The map shows the precise location of the crash.
precise/exact details
▪ Precise details of the evidence presented at that meeting have not yet been revealed.
precise/specific/exact
▪ The term ‘stress’ has a precise meaning to an engineer.
the exact/precise date
▪ I can’t remember the exact date we moved into this house.
the exact/precise moment
▪ Her stomach chose that precise moment to make a loud noise.
the exact/precise/direct opposite
▪ My own experience says that the exact opposite is true.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
as
▪ The timing, the footfalls, are as precise as a late Samuel Beckett play.
▪ Be as precise and as far-seeing as possible.
▪ I want as precise a time of death as I can get.
less
▪ Open-sprung and continuous-sprung mattresses are the cheaper type and have springs that link together, offering less precise support.
▪ Coffee grounds and cab drivers tend to be less precise than computers.
▪ The former is an area over which systematic knowledge is much less precise.
▪ Civilian users can not decipher as much information from the satellites' signals and thus get fixes that are less precise.
▪ Real world monopoly is a much less precise concept than that of theory.
▪ For a given corpus size, if one uses coarser classification then more reliable but less precise predictions are obtained.
▪ Primitive streak stage embryos can also be manipulated using a dissecting microscope but the lower resolution makes such manipulations less precise.
more
▪ For the Roman period, settlement patterns are perhaps a little more precise.
▪ The use of food composition tables is somewhat more precise but still only a crude quantitative expression of nutrients consumed.
▪ He said more precise figures would not be available until decisions had been taken on the form of restoration.
▪ Still calling to Williams for a more precise location, Adams hurtled through Pine Ridge village at high speed.
▪ It was impossible to be more precise than that.
▪ Studies range from a qualitative type of food habit inquiry to a much more precise quantitative one.
▪ I also found the work to be a lot more precise and everyone put that little bit of extra effort into their work.
▪ The range of a specialized creature may be extensive, but it is usually controlled by one or more precise factors.
so
▪ Indeed definitions of status are so precise they are even numbered.
▪ The evidence was overwhelming, but none so precise and clear as that given by a Mr Bryant and his teenage daughter.
▪ Then I made the description so precise I would always find some reason to reject each and every candidate.
▪ But the division of the cytoplasm does not need to be quite so precise.
▪ No description of such entities is so precise as to exclude apriori all possibility of an ambiguous reference.
▪ His preparations had been so precise, there was little fear the base itself would be seriously damaged.
▪ Present day popular usage is not so precise.
very
▪ I did not carry out their instructions very well so they had to be very precise in explaining things to me.
▪ It is difficult to be very precise about what counts as a semantic field.
▪ Like many terms of the sort, it does not have a very precise definition.
▪ There is a very precise equation, the Schrodinger equation, which provides a completely deterministic time-evolution for this state.
▪ At worst a vague objective should be couched in very precise terms.
▪ He was courtly or proper, and very precise in his words and thinking.
▪ Although modern electronic controls aren't always very easy to set, they are very precise and economical.
▪ Actually, quantum descriptions are very precise, as we shall see, although radically different from the familiar classical ones.
■ NOUN
cause
▪ The precise cause of the collapse of the talks was unclear.
▪ The precise cause of the break may in fact never be known.
▪ Clinically the consequences are reflected as inappetence, weight loss and diarrhoea, the precise cause of the diarrhoea being unknown.
▪ The precise cause of this serious disease is still unknown.
▪ The precise cause was open to debate.
date
▪ No precise dates have been given.
▪ The precise date will be published later.
▪ In his Jungle of the Cities he used contrived precise dates and times for each episode.
▪ The conditions of its composition and even a precise date for the play are uncertain.
▪ The precise date and location will be decided during the next few months.
▪ As to the precise dates, that is not a matter which I can immediately remember.
▪ It is not our practice to make public the precise dates of submarine construction or related programmes.
▪ An invisible curtain descended on this precise date.
definition
▪ Like many terms of the sort, it does not have a very precise definition.
▪ These arguments present questions of the meaning of the Twenty-first Amendment, the bounds of which have escaped precise definition.
▪ There was a precise definition of task and job.
▪ The depth of the North-South divide, its precise definition, and directions of change are key issues for this volume.
▪ As will be explained below, it is of the nature of a paradigm to belie precise definition.
▪ Can you give them a precise definition?
▪ Structure plans, however, lack this precise definition.
▪ Regulation ought to involve precise definition and separation of wastes into hazardous and non-hazardous, or different levels of hazard.
detail
▪ This takes up much of the last week or more and is written out in precise detail.
▪ Defined by anthropologists on the basis of precise details, these zones are generally small.
▪ You take it in for what it seems and forget, as likely as not, the precise detail.
▪ Round pointed are suitable for precise detail with control from fine to wide lines, laying down colour evenly.
▪ The draughts-person is recording the precise details and position of the bones before they are excavated.
▪ This was followed last week by a second letter giving more precise details of the make-up of the allocation.
▪ But I want to know the precise details.
▪ The precise details and mechanics of long-firm fraud vary from case to case, and many are exceedingly complex.
figures
▪ He said more precise figures would not be available until decisions had been taken on the form of restoration.
▪ Nothing turns on the precise figures.
▪ There is room for argument about precise figures, none about the general thrust of Sir Hector's briefing.
▪ Sir John told Mrs Kennedy he could not give precise figures of what job opportunities would arise from the transfer.
▪ First, we have no precise figures for how much polonium escaped or of where it actually reached.
▪ The above levels of Idemnite are those quoted in the Auvergne; precise figures can vary between Regions.
form
▪ Motion was conserved in the precise form in which it occurred at the instant of its preservation.
▪ The precise form in which the words in these languages are represented is a matter of quite secondary importance.
▪ My anxiety had no precise form or cause.
▪ At this stage the precise form of the household's relation to its property is of critical importance.
▪ One importance of the continuum is that it is a more precise form of categorisation than the simple dichotomy.
▪ I have already, before delivering this judgment, heard argument about the precise form of the order.
▪ The precise form of the appliance is not stated.
information
▪ How can they achieve maximum or target levels of profits or sales without precise information concerning their revenues and costs?
▪ On some questions, it is difficult to get precise information.
location
▪ For Christians its precise location was a question of supreme importance; but they had no criteria for answering it.
▪ Still calling to Williams for a more precise location, Adams hurtled through Pine Ridge village at high speed.
▪ Aquatic beetles of the family Hydrophilidae often bear a number of different species of Laboulbeniales, often in precise locations.
▪ San Ysidro, precise location unknown. 15.
▪ During my time as a gamekeeper it was essential that I knew the precise location of all these extended burrows.
▪ Most recently, global positioning system units have given hikers their precise location by satellite.
▪ A still-frame button - vital for the precise location of edit-points when you are recording.
meaning
▪ Use complex words only when you need a precise meaning and a simple word will not serve the purpose.
▪ Most of us maintain vague notions of justice, but its precise meaning escapes us until we are deprived of it.
▪ That is, they have a fairly definite, precise meaning.
▪ The precise meaning attached to these terms has varied depending upon the setting in which they were used.
▪ T R S Allan suggests that political concepts should inform judicial decisions about the precise meaning of supremacy.
▪ Probability has a precise meaning here.
▪ Substitution of judgment would also be avoided because the tribunal would determine which precise meaning should be adopted.
▪ On some objects scenes were reproduced whose precise meaning is difficult to recapture.
measurement
▪ Finally, do not let the following calculations and precise measurements deter you.
▪ I would stay away from precise measurement of time.
▪ Developing better and more precise measurement of the properties of phenomena is the key to the progress of scientific knowledge.
▪ But this process is two way: it is also better theories which allow us to develop more precise measurement.
mechanism
▪ The only real mystery is the precise mechanism by which the inner band of Minoan colonies was established.
▪ The precise mechanism behind this apparent adrenaline boost remains unexplained.
▪ The whole process is, once again, hormone.controlled, although the precise mechanism is uncertain.
▪ Zoologists have yet to establish the precise mechanisms behind the camel's fuel economy.
▪ What are the precise mechanisms involved in this process?
moment
▪ He had arrived at the precise moment when another twist in the plot of a murder weekend was unravelling itself.
▪ The Occident at that precise moment is nothing but a mirror.
▪ At that precise moment, Delaney came to the same conclusion as Nell.
▪ At that precise moment, who should come up the stairs to see her but Brother Mariadas.
▪ And at that precise moment, a fish grabbed.
▪ The precise moment when it was first questioned is hard to pin down for sure.
▪ But at that precise moment Nature intervened.
▪ He was preparing lunch at the precise moment.
nature
▪ It will be appreciated that the precise nature of the degree or defect in acuity or field of vision is highly individual.
▪ The man was obviously enjoying himself, but the precise nature of that pleasure eluded Quinn.
▪ The precise nature and tone of this attitude may vary.
▪ What is its precise nature and why is it before this court?
▪ Doubts have been raised concerning the precise nature of Salmon's religious identity and experiences, but the salient details are unproblematic.
▪ Victorian scholars were divided in their views of the precise nature and order of the stages of man's evolutionary progress.
▪ The research is aimed at learning about the precise nature of these mental operations.
▪ Crucial to the sucralose picture is the precise nature of the joint venture agreement with Johnson&Johnson;
number
▪ There was some dispute over the precise number of lives claimed by the riots.
▪ The precise number of employees being recalled was unavailable.
▪ The precise number of personnel was not known but was estimated as high as 1,500.
▪ The precise number changes yearly as some systems undergo significant changes.
▪ I remember arguments at the beginning of 1991 about the precise number.
▪ Interestingly, much of the math we did was not in precise numbers, but estimates.
relationship
▪ The precise relationship between these two meanings of unreasonable is not absolutely clear.
▪ It is also true to say that there was relatively less consensus about the precise relationship between causes and outcomes.
▪ As Born first showed there are precise relationships between the crystal elastic constants and the interatomic forces in a regular crystal lattice.
time
▪ By some terrific fluke Richard came face to face with his future at the precise time he most needed to see it.
▪ A clearly described project and precise time schedule will be easily translated into budgetary terms.
▪ Patients were asked to empty their bladder before going to bed, noting the precise time and discarding the urine.
▪ What was the precise time on that clock face when you looked at it just now?
▪ Rabbits, of course, have no idea of precise time or of punctuality.
▪ Go for the swim and the run and come back with precise time.
▪ No one had mentioned how fast the trains were going: nor the precise time of impact, not down to the minute.
way
▪ Then the masses of the W and Z particles should relate in a precise way according to the electro-weak theory.
▪ It is a precise way of expressing what is often called the average.
▪ Thus we have a precise way of establishing the validity of non-local effects in quantum phenomena.
▪ He likes things done in a precise way.
▪ Most listed companies do not at present use their non-executives in the precise ways Cadbury recommends.
▪ For the use of the word in any more precise way we must wait until the Mishna.
▪ The precise way in which many quangos are controlled is difficult to determine.
▪ We were looking for a precise way to express what we mean when we refer to something as complicated.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ At that precise moment, the telephone rang.
▪ Divers have been unable to find the precise location of the sunken ship.
▪ Each plane has to follow a precise route.
▪ It's difficult to be precise about the number of deaths caused by smoking.
▪ There is no precise method of measuring intelligence.
▪ We need to know your precise location.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Although I had precise engineering plans I nevertheless measured and remeasured the space.
▪ But then patterns begin to freeze, making relationships more explicit and meanings more precise.
▪ In 10 casts using this strict, precise, scientific process last week in Malibu, I caught 10 fish.
▪ In the 1920s and 1930s such distinctions in land and station use were given even more precise legislative sanctions.
▪ It is not possible to be much more precise than this without becoming hopelessly entangled in a series of impossible dilemmas.
▪ The precise cause of this serious disease is still unknown.
▪ The fine steel blade is non-stick coated giving a precise anvil action.
▪ The serious aerial photographer will be looking for adjustment through vertical and horizontal axes so that the field of view is precise.