noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a crisis situation
▪ Emergency powers were needed to deal with the crisis situation.
a situation comedy (=a regular comedy TV programme about the same characters)
▪ She starred in a situation comedy about a family with teenage kids, that ran for ten years.
a win-win situation
▪ It’s a win-win situation all around.
aggravate the situation
▪ Building the new road will only aggravate the situation.
alleviate the problem/situation/suffering etc
▪ a new medicine to alleviate the symptoms of flu
an emergency situation
▪ If an emergency situation arises, the pilot and crew must stay calm.
Catch-22 situation
▪ It’s a Catch-22 situation – without experience you can’t get a job and without a job you can’t get experience.
compromising position/situation
▪ The doctor was found in a compromising position with a nurse having sex with her.
deal with a situation
▪ For a while I had no idea how to deal with the situation.
defuse a situation/crisis/row etc
▪ Beth’s quiet voice helped to defuse the situation.
discuss the situation
▪ They held a three-hour meeting to discuss the situation.
embarrassing situation
▪ an embarrassing situation
fraught situation
▪ a fraught situation
hypothetical situation/example/question
▪ Brennan brought up a hypothetical case to make his point.
no-win situation
▪ If my child is sick and I leave work, I’m a bad employee. If I don’t, I’m a bad mother. It’s a no-win situation.
present situation
▪ the present situation of the millions of people who are suffering poverty and disease
redress the situation
▪ Little could be done to redress the situation.
resolve a problem/crisis/situation
▪ Action is being taken to resolve the problem.
situation comedy
situations vacantBritish English (= the part of a newspaper where jobs are advertised)
tense situation/atmosphere/moment etc
▪ Marion spoke, eager to break the tense silence.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
bad
▪ Students desperate to leave home may find themselves in a worse situation than the one they left.
▪ We put ourselves in bad situations.
▪ The reader's conception of the text in this case is the worst possible communicative situation.
▪ 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.
▪ The worst situation was amidships, by the base of the mainmast.
current
▪ His current situation would appear quite idyllic once the newspapers hit the doorsteps in the morning.
▪ One way this is done is to project the internal situation into current real situations when they symbolise the internal situation.
▪ And they believe that what makes the current situation precarious is the continuing uncertainty over the outlook for sterling.
▪ Students huddle round a professor of politics who gives an analysis of the current situation.
▪ There are several reasons for the current situation.
▪ First, how firmly do young children believe that the current situation dictates the way you feel?
▪ At the same time they also exploited the current political situation for their own ends.
▪ It is important, however, to distinguish between the current situation and what the future holds.
dangerous
▪ During my stay in her country we were always together, and she saved me from many dangerous situations.
▪ What you see is a dangerous situation which could turn into a threat.
▪ He had naïvely stumbled into the middle of a very complicated and dangerous situation.
▪ Nevertheless, there were times when he shocked me by his willingness to jump into dangerous situations.
▪ I sobbed with fright, even as I addressed the one and only question which confronted me in such a dangerous situation.
▪ This, it was recognized, constituted a potentially dangerous situation, but what else could the Romans do?
▪ There's a move to slow them down, but the hauliers say it could lead to a very dangerous situation.
▪ This is indeed the most dangerous situation of all.
different
▪ If you are not confident in speaking in a range of different situations then you need practice.
▪ The gait may be histrionic with the degree of dysfunction varying in different situations.
▪ It is obvious that these are very different situations in which different issues and problems arise.
▪ As symbols, they may have different meanings for different people in different situations.
▪ Different individuals project different internal situations into the shared real situation and experience these somewhat differently.
▪ It is a package of capabilities, which are accessed variously in different project-based situations.
▪ Reactions here vary according to different situations.
▪ Videotronic has been proven worldwide Videotronic machines are to be found worldwide in a variety of different situations.
difficult
▪ In response to the difficult situation schools find themselves in, a critical and forward-looking approach to curriculum renewal was developed.
▪ He handled a difficult situation with professionalism and is a big reason the Bulls are dominant.
▪ The more senior nurse can also support the junior in difficult situations because of her own recent experience.
▪ In Toxic Work, I will help you explore ways to create positive change from difficult and challenging situations.
▪ One measure of the difficult situation which has ensued has been the number of farmers killed over the last decade.
▪ The application of the matrix model for projects with a high degree of novelty, creates a difficult planning situation.
▪ That way, he can eventually learn to prepare himself for difficult or challenging situations.
economic
▪ Western delegations had visited the Soviet Union during September to research the economic situation.
▪ Although independent, therefore, the country remains in a typically colonial economic situation, dangerously dependent on fluctuations in world markets.
▪ The fifth plenum announced austerity measures to tackle the worsening economic situation and called for stronger party leadership and unity.
▪ Surely we each agree that fallow or underused land is of no help to the economic situation.
▪ The first is the world economic situation, which hits him in two ways.
▪ Experience has shown that the latter can not sustain liberal democracy in the context of their weak economic situations.
▪ None the less he feels' the poor economic situation has really speeded up the move towards more openness.
▪ Owing to the difficult political and economic situation faced by ex-USSR nations, such outbreaks may occur again.
financial
▪ Mr Davies, in his letter to staff, says the council is facing a serious financial situation.
▪ What impact would it have on the financial situation of families?
▪ Your financial situation can improve, but you may have to wait until next year before you are entirely out of the woods.
▪ For a couple of years, the board kept quiet about our financial situation, hoping that it would get better.
▪ Many students will not have to pay tuition fees if their financial situation is below a certain level.
▪ Hashimoto said he would continue to provide information about the financial situation of the housing lenders.
▪ The financial situation of the country is such that no budgetary proposals could have been guaranteed to rescue it.
impossible
▪ He was almost unbelieving of his impossible situation but on principle he didn't allow himself to feel jealous.
▪ The measure of his heart is how he deals with adversity and the way he overcomes a seemingly impossible situation.
▪ Clearly, it would put the practitioner in an impossible situation.
▪ As far as motion video, in particular, is concerned, the constraints of available technology force multimedia into a seemingly impossible situation.
▪ It is not impossible that the situation is harder to tolerate in these households than in those with single carers.
▪ The point is of course that the puzzle itself is false in setting up an impossible situation.
▪ Not only a master, but a natural comedian, because he found humour in seemingly impossible situations.
particular
▪ Any consideration of topic involves asking why the speaker said what he said in a particular discourse situation.
▪ Camus sets up a distance from his protagonist develop an existentialist understanding of reality in a concrete, particular situation.
▪ Would you so react to the particular situation which confronts us now, if you were not applying the standard mechanically?
▪ That depends on the facts of the particular situation.
▪ Some such concept is required to explain why different individuals reach different solutions in diagnosing and providing remedies for particular situations.
▪ Men learn to share facticity by being born into a particular cultural situation.
▪ Beneath all these particular situations there are conflicting values which claim the law's attention.
▪ It is a specific word for a particular situation.
political
▪ There is considerable return migration except when the military-#political situation in countries of origin makes this unfeasible.
▪ Among contemporary political systems, situations like that in the imaginary system of Delta are widespread.
▪ The joker in the pack is, of course, the political situation.
▪ The scribes had their eyes on the lawcourts, on the current political situation, on tangible concerns capable of exact definition.
▪ In this most settled and prosperous nation in history the political situation is almost permanently unstable.
▪ Any hope of an improvement appeared unlikely in view of the reduction in the level of foreign investment caused by the unstable political situation.
▪ The political situation in the country was dangerously fluid.
present
▪ The maxims would serve only to guide him towards fuller awareness of the present situation.
▪ Ismail told me sev-eral times that the present situation could not continue.
▪ Besides, the card game reflected his present situation well.
▪ Thus the present situation is confused.
▪ But for many drivers using the road regularly the present situation is unacceptable.
▪ Finally, research evidence, particularly longitudinal studies which relate children's present situations to future outcomes, will increasingly influence practice.
▪ Such recall of information and application to the present situation may change our decision on how to act ....
▪ Could it be worse than her present situation? whispered a treacherous small voice.
similar
▪ For all you can tell, it is relevantly similar to situations in which you have made mistakes.
▪ In a similar situation two weeks ago against Denver, Barry made the game-winner.
▪ The effect is similar to a situation in which share prices rapidly increase - a bull market.
▪ Before we do this exercise, let me tell you about a similar situation just two weeks ago.
▪ Furthermore, women's risk of poverty was substantially higher than men's in similar situations.
▪ How would you react if you were the boss or the employee in a similar situation?
▪ Different counsellors can use different methods in similar situations with equal success.
▪ Like men in similar situations, the women stressed the feelings of stigma, shame and humiliation in claiming benefit.
social
▪ The social situation of single-parents is one of stress.
▪ In many research projects the researcher is simply concerned with the total number of cases being affected by some social problem situation.
▪ I only took it in social situations.
▪ They had done so by learning from experience, by solving problems, from social situations.
▪ The idea that teachers can have a strategy emphasises the power of individuals to act in social situations.
▪ She always knew what to do and what to say in any social situation.
▪ Human beings experience emotions, control their actions and, as we saw with violence, define social situations.
▪ And in the long run the friendships formed in these social situations can be a powerful force in decision making.
■ VERB
arise
▪ When disputes arose out of such situations, both parties might turn to royal justice.
▪ There arose therefore an interesting situation.
▪ If it is not rape to threaten a woman other than with immediate violence, questions will inevitably arise about other situations.
▪ Those manoeuvres arise in a situation of unequal power.
▪ A particular thorny dilemma arises should the caring situation present demands beyond the level of endurance.
▪ Looking at it from the club's point of view I can see how this ban arose in a situation like this.
▪ Unwanted pregnancies can arise from any different situations either by accident or in the event o rape.
▪ It was clear that this polarized debate could have arisen in relation to all situations in which dementing people may find themselves.
assess
▪ Ballater was trying to assess the situation objectively.
▪ The brigade commander was able to assess the situation and take proper courses of action.
▪ The only way to decide is to assess the situation in each case in terms of the cat's quality of life.
▪ The officers, Brown said, talk to the person to assess the situation.
▪ London &038; Country Mortgages will assist over the phone and use a redemption penalty calculator to assess the situation.
▪ I had shot off the handle before assessing the situation properly.
▪ In fact it is just as misleading to ignore the packaging and expect some one to assess the new situation without any help.
▪ You have to assess the situation in light of everybody who is out there.
change
▪ Step 9 Be quite clear in your mind how your child must change in order for the situation to improve.
▪ There was nothing I could do to change my situation.
▪ Additions or deletions can change this situation.
▪ This means that the best way to change this situation is to change your behavior.
▪ Mere exhortations in syllabus documents will not change this situation.
▪ In addition, a child who is aware of her anger is more likely to take assertive action to change her situation.
▪ Such an unpleasant and unanticipated development radically changes the situation, and further and more profound explanations are clearly called for.
▪ The superintendent used quid pro quo to change the work situation.
create
▪ Import controls only make the situation worse and help create a siege economy situation.
▪ Instead, he created a press situation.
▪ You have still created a pressure situation.
▪ They will need to be especially mindful of her motivations and create situations that are charged enough to capture her attention.
▪ Obviously Edwin had not murdered Francis but he had created a situation in which violence was more likely.
▪ Constantly he creates situations for which he can find no earthly solution and his characters encounter difficulties beyond their means to control.
▪ Looking back, what might you have learnt if you had explored your own role in creating those situations?
▪ Singled him out and created a situation in an otherwise fairly workable arrangement.
deal
▪ He had no idea how to deal with the situation.
▪ She sought then to deal with the situation quietly, but brought charges recently after the man she had accused was promoted.
▪ How would you deal with this situation?
▪ In dealing with this immediate situation, your teammate has made a judgment that you can be dominated.
▪ As ex-Servicemen, they had not only dealt with the situations I feared most, but also those I could not imagine.
▪ Braun has dealt with difficult situations before.
▪ Furthermore, the organizations set up to deal with these situations are slow to evolve their structures to cope with changing problems.
▪ Specific proposals dealing with both situations are included below.
defuse
▪ Negotiation could sometimes defuse these situations and produce more acceptable consequences for both parties.
▪ I was trying to defuse a volatile situation.
▪ An argument broke out in the crowded pub after some drink was knocked over and Mr Brown tried to defuse the situation.
▪ Despite Fiat's efforts to defuse the situation by adopting an ethics code, its problems are not over yet.
▪ Or do they bide their time and seek to defuse the situation by negotiations via a mediator?
▪ The only thing she'd been trying to do was calm Guido down and defuse the situation.
▪ He reckons that defuses the situation.
describe
▪ There are many new words to describe eternal responses and situations.
▪ In a purely ecological sense, this wave pattern describes a situation that might be called suspended extinction.
▪ Animacy is, however, only one of the factors which influences selection of a passive form to describe a particular situation.
▪ Certainly it is clear from what Deborah describes that the situation is out of control.
▪ Happy certainly doesn't appear to describe the situation in Oxford.
▪ Lenin described such a situation as revolutionary.
face
▪ Mr Davies, in his letter to staff, says the council is facing a serious financial situation.
▪ When faced with similar situations in the future, why not give yourself prior warning by asking the following question?
▪ Years of army training had taught him to be cautious when faced with an unknown situation.
▪ None of these young States faced a simple situation.
▪ Like all sheep farmers, Peter Capener in Staffordshire faced this situation ... until he installed two 3W infra-red heaters.
▪ Normally a Federal Reserve faced with such a situation would tighten monetary policy.
handle
▪ Inevitably, the divorce had a bad effect on our relationship because I didn't know how to handle the situation.
▪ How they think you should handle a situation.
▪ The better way to handle the situation is to render the cats infertile without actually neutering them.
▪ Such learning is not automatic. 13 Succeeding or failing to handle a situation did not tell the new managers much.
▪ He has the ability to handle heated situations better than others.
▪ They didn't have the power behind them to handle such situations.
improve
▪ What I am concerned about is that electricity privatisation will not lend itself to improving the situation.
▪ You would think from the figures for deaths and illness from Western diseases that little was being done to improve the situation.
▪ But there was little we could do to improve the situation.
▪ Some companies are taking measures to improve this situation.
▪ At a Jan. 21 appeals hearing before the full commission, five of the eight improved their situations.
▪ What, then, can practitioners do to improve the situation?
▪ In virtually every case, treatment will improve the situation remarkably.
monitor
▪ Perceptual skills by contrast are developments to do with the greater selectivity of information needed to monitor situations and guide actions.
▪ That state sent an environmental official to Narragansett to monitor the situation.
▪ Regular print outs to monitor the situation change in format and name in late August from P11s to P13s.
▪ U.S. troops could be seen monitoring the situation through binoculars and counting the rebels.
▪ Lord James promised to monitor the situation and to bring legislation forward if it were proved it was needed.
▪ Thus she monitored many clients whose situation was felt to be unstable, and she negotiated widely for other services.
▪ In the meantime, the Medicines Control Agency is closely monitoring the situation.
▪ The regulators monitored the situation but never became involved.
remedy
▪ Should not the Government act with similar urgency to remedy that situation?
▪ To remedy the situation, the water must be heavily chlorinated.
▪ It appears that a few extra hours of uninterrupted sleep can remedy the situation.
▪ Two courses of action to remedy the situation are therefore being attempted.
▪ Please could you look into this matter and see what can be done to remedy the situation.
▪ Many tried and failed to introduce legislation to remedy the situation.
▪ If your tap water is of doubtful quality then you must be prepared to remedy the situation or use rain water instead.
▪ Companies in this situation have been quick to remedy the situation.
review
▪ Take time to review the situation, taking all the factors into consideration.
▪ He asks her please to hold off on any action until he can review the situation personally.
▪ Fourth, to put mineral planning authorities under a duty to review the planning situation in respect of every mineral operation within their area.
▪ A use-of-force committee was formed to review the situation.
▪ Leaders of the five unions meet today to review the situation.
▪ The Governing body will review the situation later in the year.
▪ Wiping a slick of moisture from her brow, she reviewed the situation.
▪ We agreed on two voyages from the Thames to Nantes and then we would review the situation.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a chicken and egg situation/problem etc
▪ It's a chicken and egg situation really.
an either-or situation
retrieve a situation
reverse order/situation/process etc
▪ At the bottom of the pile, in reverse order of its importance, was the letter from the bishop.
▪ Cosmologists have supposed that the universe might go into reverse and run through with all its physical laws in reverse order.
▪ In fact we have just suggested the reverse order of development.
▪ The reverse process was used to install the launcher on pedestals at the pad.
▪ The reverse process, therefore, is to consider what we owe to other people.
▪ To take these points in reverse order, the initiation of the student into the rational life should occur in two directions.
▪ Ultimately you are involved in a reverse process of what the historian H underwent while writing the book.
▪ We discuss in reverse order these three ways that languages can have words that share sound and meaning.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Everyone knew how serious the situation was.
▪ For most refugees, the situation is pretty hopeless.
▪ I tried to explain the situation to my boss.
▪ If you are ever in a situation where someone starts shooting, drop to the ground.
▪ In the present situation, I don't think it would be a good idea to try to sell your house.
▪ In your situation, I would have done exactly the same thing.
▪ The economic situation in the US is getting better.
▪ The news of more stock market losses could make the difficult economic situation worse.
▪ The proper investment balance depends on each investor's situation.
▪ What's the best way to deal with an embarrassing situation at work?
▪ With no rain for six months, the situation in the region was becoming desperate.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ As she well knows, hers is not a situation of personal failure.
▪ But Sheila's situation does not lend itself to action.
▪ I feel absolutely content with the situation.
▪ I should have known that eventually some man would come along and take advantage of the situation.
▪ In a situation humanly desperate, with the race line hardening, there is hope.
▪ In Mesoamerica the social situation was quite different.
▪ The guidelines also place obligations on the responding members in each of the above situations including content and timeliness of response.
▪ This situation has enormous implications for all patients who require an extra contractual referral based on clinical need.