What does very mean

Crossword clues for very

very

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English

very

I.adverb

COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES

a great many/a good many/very many (=a very large number)

▪ Most of the young men went off to the war, and a great many never came back.

▪ It all happened a good many years ago.

at the (very) least (=not less than and probably much more than)

▪ It would cost $1 million at the very least.

at the very most (=he was probably younger)

▪ The boy looked nine at the very most.

at/from the very beginning (=used for emphasis)

▪ He had been lying to me from the very beginning.

by its very nature

▪ Capitalist society is by its very nature unstable.

deeply/very/profoundly moving

▪ Bayman’s book about his illness is deeply moving.

deeply/very/really shocked

▪ We are all deeply shocked by what’s happened.

highly/most/very unlikely

▪ It’s highly unlikely that he’ll survive.

highly/very accomplished

▪ a highly accomplished designer

highly/very dangerous

▪ it was a highly dangerous situation.

in a (very) real sense (=used to emphasise that a statement or description is true)

▪ The truth is that in a very real sense most families in Britain are not poor.

like...very much

▪ She’s a lovely girl and I like her very much.

most/very likely

▪ I’d very likely have done the same thing in your situation.

not so hot/not very hotinformal (= not very good)

▪ Some of the tracks on the record are great, but others are not so hot.

not too/not very/not that keen on sth

▪ She likes Biology, but she’s not too keen on Physics.

not very

▪ The food is not very good there.

not very/too sure

▪ Make a list of any words or phrases whose meaning you are not too sure about.

only a very few (=not many)

▪ There are only a very few exceptions.

quite/very often

▪ I quite often go to Paris on business.

quite/very/perfectly properly

▪ People are, quite properly, proud of their homes.

sth's very existence

▪ The university's very existence is at stake.

Thank you very much

▪ Thank you very much, Brian.

Thanks very much

▪ Thanks very much for your help.

the exact/same/very spot

▪ the exact spot where the king was executed

the very best

▪ He’s one of the very best players around.

the very epitome of

▪ He was the very epitome of evil.

the very essence of (=she seems very kind)

▪ She seems the very essence of kindness .

the very moment (=used for emphasizing that something happened at a particular time)

▪ I could tell something was wrong from the very moment I walked in through the front door.

the very opposite (=exactly the opposite)

▪ Exercise does not increase the appetite - in fact, the very opposite is true.

the very same (=the same person or thing and not a different one – used to emphasize that what you are saying seems surprising)

▪ We stood in front of the very same house in which Shakespeare wrote his plays.

the very thought (=even the idea of doing something)

▪ The very thought of going on stage made her feel ill.

very different

▪ Our sons are very different from each other.

Very few

▪ Very few of the staff come from the local area.

very like

▪ He’s very like his brother.

very little

▪ The situation has improved very little.

very little

▪ There’s very little money left.

very loving

▪ He’s very loving and affectionate with his sister.

very much in love

▪ They were obviously very much in love.

very much like

▪ My experience is very much like that described in the book.

very much

▪ We very much regret that there will be job losses.

very much

▪ She very much wanted to do the right thing.

very much

▪ The house was very much as I’d remembered it.

very much

▪ Thank you very much!

very much

▪ I’m feeling very much better, thank you.

very nearly

▪ He very nearly died.

very occasionally (=rarely)

▪ We only see each other very occasionally.

very popular

▪ She was a very popular teacher.

very responsive

▪ I tried to get him talking, but he wasn’t very responsive.

very rich

▪ He is a very rich man.

very similar

▪ I was in a very similar situation not so long ago.

very top

▪ The book I wanted was at the very top of the pile.

very wrong

▪ Something is very wrong.

very/deeply hurt

▪ Alice was deeply hurt that she hadn’t been invited.

very/deeply unhappy

▪ The Government was deeply unhappy about criticism from the press.

very/deeply/highly unpopular

▪ This bill is deeply unpopular with the rest of the Republican establishment.

very/extremely expensive

▪ We ate at a very expensive restaurant.

very/extremely violent

▪ an extremely violent attack

very/extremely/immensely/fabulously etc wealthy

▪ He left as a poor, working class boy and returned as a wealthy man.

very/extremely/immensely/highly etc complicated

▪ Mental illness is a very complicated subject.

very/extremely/incredibly simple

▪ I came up with a very simple answer to this problem.

very/extremely/quite/pretty etc clever

▪ Lucy is quite clever and does well at school.

very/highly suitable (also eminently suitableformal)

▪ This exercise is very suitable for back pain sufferers.

very/highly/eminently readable

▪ The book is informative and highly readable.

very/highly/extremely competent

▪ She’s a highly competent linguist.

very/highly/extremely likely

▪ It did not seem very likely that he was still alive.

very/highly/extremely suggestible

▪ At that age, kids are highly suggestible.

very/highly/most satisfactory

▪ After her initial difficulties she has made a very satisfactory recovery.

very/most probably

▪ The building will be replaced, most probably by a modern sports centre.

very/most unfair

▪ We live in a very unfair world.

very/most/highly unusual

▪ Gandhi was a most unusual politician.

very/quite often

▪ Very often children who behave badly at school have problems at home.

very/really proud

▪ Your family must be very proud of you.

very/really scared

▪ By this time I was feeling really scared.

very/really surprised

▪ I would be very surprised if that was the case.

very/really worried

▪ We were really worried about him during the divorce.

your very own (=used to add more emphasis)

▪ One day I want to have a horse of my very own.

COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS

■ ADJECTIVE

clever

▪ People could be fooled because these types were very clever strategists, especially when they became bored.

▪ And the people who can play them are very clever indeed.

▪ The child psychologists have gotten very clever.

▪ Work hard at all your reading, you are very clever about it.

▪ If they go in and it turns out not to be very clever, the referendum covers their backs.

▪ It was all very clever, really, because all the wedding presents had just more or less run out.

▪ I assured her that I was laughing because I was happy to be with them and because the story-teller was very clever.

close

▪ You do business with my daddy, you're very close to him in that way.

▪ Healing with a launch failure A failure very close to the ground frequently results in damage.

▪ She provides her own examples of sudden changes in behaviour, some of which are very close to Pope's characters.

▪ Rod himself admits that he's been very close to arrest.

▪ He looked as if he'd taken both barrels into his chest at very close range.

▪ He and the other Officers must have been very close to the shell burst!

▪ More recently, philosophy has had very close links with mathematics and artificial intelligence.

dangerous

▪ They have false floors, so beware, it is very dangerous to climb down into them!

▪ The soldiers were both terrified and amused at this very dangerous snake wriggling around, and eventually, they dispatched it.

▪ The Ford driver was furious and trying to regain his place, a very dangerous manoeuvre.

▪ She laughed and said that, yes, it was very dangerous but what to do?

▪ Evasion of this kind, though most understandable because of the hurt at the root of things, is potentially very dangerous.

▪ The thing is, left in the wrong hands, truth can be very, very dangerous.

▪ They were once thought to be very dangerous indeed and believed to steal infants for the Devil to torment in Hell.

▪ Dangerous discussion Your magazine is potentially very dangerous.

different

▪ The interplay of these very different personalities with Beckett's mercurial temperament results in fascinating and varied music.

▪ In the midst of her momentary relief, she knows everything is very different.

▪ Not only do they taste different, but they are very different in their performance when it comes to washing.

▪ Sexy as hell, actually, each in a very different way, although equally vivid.

▪ For what followed was very different.

▪ Geographically distant sites are characterized by very different faunas.

▪ Phonic, phonetic Sometimes these words are used interchangeably, but they have very different meanings.

▪ First, he had to commit to some very different budgeting and spending habits.

difficult

▪ This part of the Act has been strongly criticized and to some extent misused for a minority of very difficult cases.

▪ It was very difficult to move him.

▪ This patination is very difficult to induce artificially.

▪ It is very difficult to see why two adjacent planets should accrete such radically different materials.

▪ They are both fit and active but I find it very difficult to keep their weight up.

▪ It's a deceptively simple idea that's very difficult to put into practice.

▪ He said he'd done a wonderful job in very difficult circumstances.

▪ Again, without this design for integration it will be very difficult to achieve the expected gains of databases and information systems.

far

▪ Adults won't get very far in trying to help some one unless they find out what their reasons are.

▪ Generally speaking, people did not move very far.

▪ But comparison with the press can not go very far.

▪ Behaviour is very far from being disorderly.

▪ So far these are very far from being boom times.

▪ But their accumulation is very far from the complicated truth.

▪ He had not got very far with Pilger's list.

funny

▪ He was very funny in it.

▪ I think all this is very funny.

▪ His character sketches of the principal players are sharp, perceptive and often very funny.

▪ For children, the idea of men dressing up as women and vice versa is very funny.

▪ Singer can, after all, be very funny.

▪ He isn't a very funny man.

good

▪ The very best product to smooth the cuticle and help mend the split ends is Pure Gloss.

▪ But beneath that unpromising cover is some very good reading.

▪ There's also a very good children's clothes shop nearby which deals in second-hand baby equipment.

▪ Nor were they very good weapons.

▪ And for very good if slightly mean-spirited reasons.

▪ Mr. David Howell I am sure that that is a very good definition.

▪ Mr. Clark My hon. Friend makes a very good point.

▪ So do I. There are two very good courts here.

happy

▪ Whilst being very happy in a secretarial role I would like to widen my scope.

▪ I was very happy in a professional sense, and I found community life as sustaining as community life can be.

▪ We would like to take this opportunity to say thank you and wish her a very happy retirement.

▪ We were very happy in our little hotel room.

▪ I've been very happy with my little Cathy.

▪ We were very happy that things were coming back and getting better.

▪ Male speaker I was delighted, very happy.

▪ Carbed to the max, we were very happy with our choices.

hard

▪ It was true that it was very hard to work in the public baths.

▪ Or they work very hard and watch their children and wait for their men.

▪ In all of this Boy was trying very hard, so very hard that it was touching to watch.

▪ As a result of this, she had a very hard time giving birth, and I was blue.

▪ The other metal used for anti-tank rounds is tungsten, which is also very hard and dense.

▪ Parenting is romantic and fun, but it is also very hard work.

▪ Subcultural ownership of music is very hard to protect.

▪ We tried very hard to get him out of here.

high

▪ But comfort is vital - so avoid very tight waistbands, very high collars or shoes which pinch.

▪ In fact, the morale of the crew was very high, if morale was the right word.

▪ To read in such a small bar code successfully requires a very high degree of resolution.

▪ If the possible reward is very high, I would put money into a business that could fail. 4.

▪ The Bank does not provide assistance and interest rates could rise very high indeed.

▪ It has a very high viscosity which requires that it be raised to about 250-F to pump and spray into the furnace.

▪ This rapid transmission of pictorial output demands very high speed links.

▪ Sara, a woman in her late forties, had achieved a very high position in public relations.

hot

▪ Drawbacks: The exterior walls get very hot during combination cooking.

▪ And taking a bath in very hot water after you drink it.

▪ She noticed that it was getting very hot all of a sudden.

▪ Pequin: A family of small chilies, yellow to orange in color, that are very hot.

▪ The spectral types were given letters of the alphabet, as follows: O: very hot stars, greenish-white or bluish-white.

▪ It was very hot and the house was still.

▪ When we woke on the Friday it was very hot.

▪ When done and still very hot, place half a marshmallow on each cookie.

important

▪ However, it is a very important issue whose educational implications require considerable deliberation.

▪ This is quite true, given the existence of some very important necessary conditions.

▪ When describing the person in question, a reference to physical appearance is often made showing that physical appearance is very important.

▪ This analysis is very important since the bodies of the incorruptibles have been erroneously classified by many as natural mummies.

▪ The professors realized that I was doing very important work, and so they gave me my own laboratory.

▪ However, if this type of phenomenon is not very important, then our hypothesis remains valid.

▪ For most of the time he combined this with the very important post of deputy treasurer-at-wars.

▪ You have become very important to me, Mistah Wilson.

large

▪ In general, consecutive spill should be considered for low packing densities and/or very large bucket sizes.

▪ The worker must straddle and stretch across the distances, often very large distances.

▪ But aren't we going to need a very large toothbrush.

▪ It seems most likely, in fact, that primitive life arose and was destroyed several times over by very large impacts.

▪ A very large proportion had been there before and would be there again.

▪ Picture your garden bed of cucumbers, a very large patch of them, a bumper crop.

▪ There are many markets where the cost of entry is very large.

▪ It had the proportions of a very large grand hotel such as the Plaza-very bulky and very low.

likely

▪ Some of the houses were very likely in poor condition.

▪ In order that Compacts eventually do become self financing it is very likely that employers will be asked to contribute to central costs.

▪ Absorption from such sites is very likely to be erratic, leading to poorly controlled diabetes and possibly unexplained hypoglycaemia.

▪ Tina would very likely laugh and clap or even stroke the bear.

▪ I was only on the waiting list anyway and it wasn't very likely that four people would drop out.

▪ Indeed, it is very likely that the process varies with the relationship between the carer and dependant.

▪ At the time Sinha thought it wasn't very likely and forgot about it.

▪ It wasn't very likely that he was going to want to get involved again, was it?

little

▪ There was also very little demand for help on legal matters and employment issues.

▪ And Frye had very little confidence in his ability to transform attitudes.

▪ The island is beginning to see an increase in foreign visitors, but as yet very little development has taken place.

▪ Handling the raft required very little attention.

▪ Well, we have very little choice, in my opinion.

▪ At that point there was very little construction going on on the site.

▪ He knew very little about tests done on blood from bones, only that they could be carried out.

▪ At the moment, very little indeed.

long

▪ Clearly this is consistent both with a period of about a day and with a very long period.

▪ His music will continue to be performed for a very long time.

▪ It was a long shot, very long.

▪ Our Social Security system has already attached a very long string to generations of children for support of their parents' generation.

▪ The arms are very long, greater than seven times the disk diameter.

▪ There was only one day, wasn't there, or did they have days here but they were just very long?

▪ They were enjoying themselves immensely; the lines were all very long, and it was cool in the post office.

low

▪ A small part of law work, and that of a very low status, is concerned with the working class.

▪ Piot said the commitment to very low drug prices is only one step in a complex process.

▪ The extremes of a statistical distribution represent unpredictably rare individual events, which have very low values of statistical probability.

▪ I am a fan of index funds, especially because their management fees tend to be very low.

▪ However, these are for the most part of very low quality and certainly can not meet the needs of the poorest sectors.

▪ We had been fighting hard that day, and all of us were very low on ammunition.

▪ Wages were pitiful and despite recovering somewhat in certain sectors in the last years before the war, they remained very low.

▪ Rural counties such as Gwynedd suffer particularly since they often have very low density settlements, rugged terrain and relatively poor roads.

nice

▪ He looked very nice in it and he did win the contest, so Ken did know what he was doing.

▪ Catera is a very nice package.

▪ I shall vote Tory because Mr Major is a very, very nice man.

▪ This kid had, at fifteen, two girlfriends, four children, a Mercedes-Benz, and some very nice clothes.

▪ You know, Meatloaf has a very nice pair.

▪ But yes, it is a very nice model.

▪ They say the beach down there is very nice.

popular

▪ A Yellow Tangs are very popular aquarium fish and many hobbyists try to keep them in shoals.

▪ Instead, you were supposed to leave food for him, which should make his job very popular.

▪ These are very popular with people gathering from towns and villages from miles around.

▪ It was very popular at the time.

▪ Today the railway attracts many tourists to the area, and is very popular with ramblers.

▪ It seems to be a very popular material.

▪ A very popular day excursion is to the Isles of Scilly, either by helicopter or ferry.

▪ This modern 3 star hotel has proved very popular with our guests and is well recommended.

real

▪ My involvement with separatism lasted five years, but in a very real sense it will never leave me.

▪ What parents do not realize is that they are a very real presence in any school.

▪ In a very real sense, though not the sense they were expecting, the kingdom had come in power.

▪ In fact, both practically and philosophically our reality often turns out not to be very real.

▪ It was basic, primitive and very, very real.

▪ In a very real sense, payment of dividends represents a choice between future capital gains and current cash payments.

▪ In our desire to become the architects of our own evolution, we risk the very real possibility of losing our humanity.

▪ That relationship is very real and very strong.

short

▪ In certain cases the law imposes very short time limits within which you must act.

▪ It is a typical aquatic plant with a very short rhizome; stems are very thin, rooting or floating in water.

▪ Everybody was surprised to see Anne with very short hair, but no one learned the secret.

▪ It lasted a very short time.

▪ At church the Vicar, Mr Nicolson, preached only a very short sermon.

▪ The plants have a very short, branching stem.

▪ The first is very short duration, maximum output attacks.

▪ The third isotope of hydrogen, hydrogen-3 or tritium, is highly radioactive and has a very short half-life.

similar

▪ All Silver punchcard machines are very similar.

▪ Three small NEAs have spectra very similar to those of basaltic achondrites and of the asteroid Vesta.

▪ This is very similar to the probit findings.

▪ At first a very similar system seemed to apply to monkeys and apes.

▪ At Hales Nurseries near Bournemouth, which took in over fifty children, conditions were very similar to those at Bydown.

▪ Subject coverage of all volumes is very similar and publication is on an annual or biennial basis.

▪ There is a rare Brittany breed which is very similar to the Guernsey and possibly formed the ancestral stock.

▪ Dzerzhinsky frequently thought of the railway network in very similar terms.

simple

▪ A modern multi-storey office block is a very simple design.

▪ Such knowledge can be very simple, and all the more pertinent for that.

▪ In his opinion, while the Smalltalk syntax is very simple, its simplicity obscures simple programming tasks.

▪ In sum, hypertext is a very simple concept based on the association of nodes through links.

▪ Even as this problem forms itself in my head it is superseded by its very simple and obvious solution.

▪ A few processing elements by themselves do very simple tasks.

small

▪ It was a very small company - only 23 employees - and my brother Neil was already working there.

▪ The pilot sat behind the gunner, offering a very small forward profile.

▪ In 1988 it allowed thirteen very small parties to secure 41 of the Knesset's 120 seats.

▪ And our chances are very small.

▪ The number of suppliers doing really substantial amounts of business with libraries is very small.

▪ It was a very small explosion, but it reverberated loudly and quickly across Washington.

▪ It sounds very small in relation to the costs of war, but so do most budgets.

▪ At the Mondrian, newest of the designer hotels by Philippe Starck, guests are made to feel very small.

strong

▪ We will be making a very strong plea to them.

▪ It has to be very strong, because real estate can go unoccupied for a period of time.

▪ Penguin's strength is of course in its enormous bookshop area, and it is very strong in my High-flyer league.

▪ That relationship is very real and very strong.

▪ The Bookman didn't look very strong.

▪ Patient response to the program was very strong and positive, and the program continued very successfully for two years.

▪ She wasn't young but she was very strong.

▪ I had some very strong experiences there, which I also find hard to talk about.

useful

▪ The method has nevertheless proved very useful.

▪ The tone scale is very useful and is a good guide.

▪ They clearly did not see it as very useful to them.

▪ Thornton had good contacts as well, and proved very useful in arranging meetings.

▪ Conciliation officers are very useful for advising employers of the tasks before them at a tribunal hearing.

▪ A reputation for being exclusive is not very useful in a market where success depends on recruiting large numbers.

▪ But whatever his motives, he soon realized that he had tapped a very useful vein of information in Ted Morgan.

▪ The developing audio technology to position a sound in three-dimensional space will become very useful.

young

▪ Such vision is an unusual attribute, but one which the artist maintains has been with him since a very young age.

▪ We are still the caregivers of the very young and the very old.

▪ It's a very young role and she has to lead the gypsy dance routine.

▪ In most states, courts hold that very young children are incapable of contributory negligence.

▪ All the girls were skilled at farm work, work they had done since they were very young.

▪ They were tough, highly trained volunteers in the Airborne, but some looked very young to me.

▪ While children were very young it was possible to muddle through.

▪ The easiest way to ensure this was to choose a very young woman, still in her teens.

PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES

at the (very) least

▪ But, at the very least, we want to be cut in on the deal.

▪ Each tier was held in place by tiny press studs which sprang apart at the least pressure.

▪ He threw noisy tantrums at the least provocation.

▪ I suppose I had expected anger, an outburst of violence, at the very least surprise and furious disbelief.

▪ I was sure, at the very least, that diet does had done thousands of women like me no good.

▪ Obviously, organic does signify better, or at the least an improvement, but the buyer must beware.

▪ People's lives could be at stake, or at the very least their futures.

▪ That there should be, at the least, periodic review.

I don't feel too hot/so hot/very hot

a (very/completely/entirely) different animal

▪ But as I take my very first step on to the ground she becomes a very different animal.

▪ Each dancer had to assume the actions of a different animal.

▪ I was a Territorial, a very different animal.

▪ My second example, although involving a very different animal, raises the same kind of questions.

▪ So in Utah now, Rivendell is really a different animal.

▪ You should repeat each test at least ten times using a different animal of the same kind for each test.

at the (very) outside

▪ At the same time, more IBMers were encouraged to look at the outside via secondments or community links.

▪ From a three-hour flight, at the outside, when he'd only flown from London to Helsinki on the last lap?

▪ George is tall, red-haired, freckled, with deep squint lines at the outside corners of his blue eyes.

▪ I settled myself at the outside table and sipped my coffee, trying to get my bearings.

▪ Look at the outside and don't be fooled by appearances.

▪ Looking at the outside of this building.

▪ Picasso aimed his passion at the outside world.

▪ The second turning starts at the outside edge turning the whole field including the double row towards the hedgerow.

be the (very/living/spitting) image of sb

▪ All she had was the image of a woman lying on the ground and people desperate to help her.

▪ And just lagging it slightly was the image of the posed dancer.

▪ But we both agreed the little mite was the spitting image of the man.

▪ It was the image of returning once again to her empty maisonette in Ealing.

▪ My favorite is the image of an aproned cook in the rear of the open kitchen.

▪ Pressing upon the rest of us is the image of all those dormant scars in the crust potentially surging to life.

▪ This is the image of a successful couple.

▪ Throughout the show's history, for instance, Cleese was the very image of pompous, impatient rectitude.

before your very eyes

▪ Get them by blasting the goose-neck helicopter that assembles itself before your very eyes!

▪ He hadn't even touched her, yet she was in severe danger of coming unglued before his very eyes.

▪ He unzipped his fly and peed before their very eyes.

▪ It isn't even about having him perform them for us before our very eyes, on demand.

▪ Michael plans to prepare complete meals before your very eyes.

▪ One hundred and fifty years of glamour sitting on a stool right before your very eyes, that's what she was.

▪ The pounds, shillings and pence were dancing before her very eyes.

can't very well (do sth)

from the (very) first

▪ The relationship was doomed to failure from the first.

▪ Although the data from the first study are still being analysed, initial results are promising.

▪ By 1990, only Sir Geoffrey Howe survived from the first cabinet.

▪ His watch, his ring, his money and his suitcase neatly packed had all been sent from the first hotel.

▪ Research and design skills can be electronically brought in from the first world.

▪ The follow up study was restricted to participants from the first study who were 25 to 74 years of age at baseline.

▪ The main concern over the century was to shift as much as possible from the first to the second form.

▪ The second word is the noun formed from the first word, the verb.

▪ This performance needed more pace, a lighter touch throughout from the orchestra and much greater clarity from the first violins.

it's/that's all very well, but ...

just the thing/the very thing

not very savoury/none too savoury

the (very) stuff of dreams/life/politics

▪ But such philosophical dissent, at this point, is the stuff of dreams in a dreamworld.

▪ How does a political system handle the incredibly difficult and complicated value allocations that are the stuff of politics?

▪ Our ideas and hopes for the future are the stuff of life.

▪ This was the stuff of life.

▪ Within this realm the stuff of dreams and nightmares can coalesce from the very air.

very funny!

▪ Oh, that's very funny. I know you're in there.

▪ Very funny! Who hid my car keys?

very good

▪ He did, of course benefit from having a very good defence.

▪ He had a very good sense of who he is.

▪ Herta continues to be very good, or at least very silent, about my impotence.

▪ In my heart I was fiercely competitive: I wanted to be the very best at anything I cared about.

▪ It would have to be the very best, and by a healthy margin.

▪ No one is very bad, but no one is very good.

▪ The very best numbers were numbers like 20, 23, 30, 40, 57, 75, 105 and 155.

very well

▪ All three are very well represented as sediments, shelly fossils and trace.fossils.

▪ Gentlemen, you could very well be using this gravel strip as an emergency landing field for huge bombers.

▪ In the psyche, as we know, such opposites as true and false coexist very well.

▪ It was all very well to be indignant, but she had driven him away.

▪ Life in a Mayfair rectory suited her very well and she had private means.

▪ Nevertheless, it captures the essence of the game very well.

▪ She decided to rest, having treated enough cases of sunstroke to know very well how easily it was caught.

▪ The last time they played, Taylor took Michael Irvin man-to-man most of the day and did very well.

EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES

▪ "Was it a good movie?" "Yes, very."

▪ Carter went to the very best schools.

▪ During our time working together I got to know her very well.

▪ Everything was happening very quickly, and I don't remember it all.

▪ It's very cold outside.

▪ Juan is a very good dancer.

▪ Sid gets embarrassed very easily.

▪ The ambassador made a brief statement, saying that the talks had been very productive.

▪ The two brothers died on the very same day.

▪ There is a very real possibility that two stores will have to be closed.

▪ This meeting is very important, so be on time.

▪ Your house is very different from the way I'd imagined it.

EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS

▪ Clearly this is consistent both with a period of about a day and with a very long period.

▪ He was a very physical person and I recall as a child lying on his chest.

▪ I see this very clearly underneath your politeness.

▪ I was not stupid, but I was very lazy.

▪ Olive trees especially may embody the Goddess, for they live a very long time.

▪ Only the very old people remembered Albert Porter, and their eyesight was no better than their memory.

▪ These are very much right-brain tasks, involving both that posterior parietal area and a region of frontal lobe.

▪ When I was in high school, I was always very thin.

II.adjective

COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS

■ NOUN

beginning

▪ He was a strong and greedy monarch who pursued a course of military aggrandisement from the very beginning of his reign.

▪ This time she started to interrogate me from the very beginning.

▪ They are born into a nexus of interactions and relationships that shape the expression of their own needs from the very beginning.

▪ This had been on the cards from the very beginning.

▪ What was there in the very beginning?

▪ All of a sudden they realised they had been tricked from the very beginning.

▪ I opposed it from the very beginning.

centre

▪ How different Oxford was from Nebraska ... Oxford, the very centre of intellectual life.

▪ In the very centre of the village, close to the church, was the blacksmith's forge.

▪ Indeed it had and the Nonconformist minister stood at the very centre of the Nonconformist world we are discussing.

▪ But I can find my way to the very centre of it.

▪ The infrared picture is at 10 times the scale of the optical photograph, showing only the very centre of the galaxy.

▪ As for myself, she was the very centre of my life.

▪ The ark of the covenant At the very centre of this whole divinely-dictated religion was the ark.

day

▪ And the Vatican has held the secret to this very day.

▪ The previous autumn, the muggy monsoon heat had begun to diminish on the very day following the festival of Dusshera.

▪ I can remember their faces clearly to this very day.

▪ She would do her job - and do it well right until the very day when she left the company.

▪ Suddenly there was a flurry of activity, their bags were packed hurriedly and they were to leave that very day.

▪ I remember the very day she met Mr Hawker, here in Manchester - don't you, Pru?

edge

▪ He sat down again on the very edge of the chair and they drank the tea in silence.

▪ At their very edges the sea encroaches far in at roughly twelve and a half hour intervals, and then retreats.

▪ They plunged over the very edge of the human capacity to feel.

▪ The monastery has a beautiful situation, on the very edge of the river Olt in fine mountain country.

▪ Loretta perched herself uncomfortably on the very edge of the jacket.

▪ But equally you can create suspense out of going to the very edge.

▪ She glanced down, to discover she was hugging the very edge of the mattress.

end

▪ Yet Hassan was at the very end of his patience.

▪ My particular concern is the very ends of the fingers - or, the nails.

▪ He told her so at the very end.

▪ The village church, tucked away at the very end of a winding leafy lane, is dedicated to St Mary.

essence

▪ Atheism for Marxism is not an optional extra or a mere facet but the very essence of it.

▪ These distortions are the very essence of prejudice, and it is hardly surprising that conflict with Peter had arisen.

▪ Wars were the very essence of the Roman organization.

▪ In Richard, she had the very essence of his father.

▪ The second assumption is the very essence of self development.

▪ It is, indeed, politically more difficult for it threatens the very essence of capitalism.

▪ Yet movement is the very essence of being human and of the human condition which policing sets out to nullify.

▪ Plato argued that to know yourself was the very essence of knowledge.

existence

▪ He also recognises that in a free society values may develop which are alien to its very existence.

▪ First, there is the obvious point that the very existence of private legislation procedure may not necessarily be recognised.

▪ Its birthday - its very existence - is being celebrated in a new book by Susan Basnett.

▪ So, for example, the very existence of a product range is, in itself, a selling point for a product.

▪ Instead of cooperation we have a destructive form of conflict in a social system whose very existence depends on cooperation.

▪ Feeling conspicuous - embarrassed about my very existence but resentful of what had happened.

▪ If it were to do so, the very existence of the currency union would be placed in jeopardy.

fact

▪ It wasn't that I was tempted to eat those convenient nuts, just the very fact of their existence.

▪ But that very fact requires a conventionalist to find a more complex political justification than the one I just described.

▪ Research indicates that behaviour may be altered by the very fact that it is being monitored.

▪ Yet the very fact of taking action was undoubtedly a source of inspiration.

▪ The very fact of suggesting things to people tends to result in inaccuracies.

▪ Two particulars simultaneously occupying two different places are in virtue of this very fact two different particulars.

▪ One respects the authority which is founded on the very fact of being so respected.

heart

▪ How much to vary the product according to the market was a problem which hit at the very heart of the business.

▪ The very heart of Marx's analysis of capitalism therefore rests on the simple but powerful concept that profit is robbery.

▪ Data integration is especially a problem for geographers because information synthesis is at the very heart of the discipline.

▪ Fifteen acres of rich, tropical gardens in the very heart of the city.

▪ It is because this garret is at the very heart of Government.

▪ And here, where we are walking right now, was the very heart of their financial empire.

▪ At the very heart of single capacity was the Stock Exchange's rule-book which effectively blocked significant structural reform.

▪ A home is the very heart of life.

idea

▪ Indeed, for many the very idea of attaining a political focus has been discarded in favour of a celebration of fragmentation.

▪ The very idea of taking drugs disgusted me.

▪ He rejects, it is true, the very idea of consistency in principle as important for its own sake.

▪ But what of the very idea of advertising in a public service system?

▪ I was terrified out of my wits at the very idea.

▪ The very idea is preposterous and I was overjoyed to see that you believed me.

▪ Yet the very idea was gross and implausible.

▪ The very idea of working from home should have been anathema to me.

life

▪ Yet this was very life itself.

▪ One day we may meet that villain, or the many like him, and have to fight for our very lives.

▪ Their very lives would have to be at stake first.

▪ I played as if my very life depended upon it.

▪ His very life might depend on it.

▪ The fight - the very life! - went out of me.

▪ The future - the very lives - of these children depend on our ability to reach them with vaccines and health education.

▪ In that moment, he had known he could trust her - with his very life, as it were.

moment

▪ She would have stayed asleep, too, if not for the outrageous racket that erupted outside at that very moment.

▪ They were wondering where she was at that very moment.

▪ She knew the offers would disappear again the very moment she tried to take them up.

▪ This was seen at the very moment of James V's death.

▪ Elizabeth played one of her characteristically tantalizing games, and kept him waiting until the very moment of her death.

▪ Strange that David should be coming along at that very moment that she'd emerged on to the main road.

nature

▪ Because of the very nature of desktop publishing this should come as no surprise.

▪ As pointed out above regarding the verbs of perception, nevertheless, the passive is by its very nature resultative.

▪ It goes against the very nature of man today.

▪ By their very nature a complete beginner will find some of the drills rather difficult.

▪ The very nature of their mouths says so. paradoxically, however, surface feeding is part of their nature too.

▪ Personal computers like the Apple are by their very nature easy to learn to use and simple to operate.

▪ By the very nature of the case, the demands of commercial secrecy, this is difficult to research.

▪ He maintained that by its very nature, capitalism involves the exploitation and oppression of the worker.

stuff

▪ Controversy, intrigue, the literary spilling of blood is the very stuff of the Guitarist letters page.

▪ This is the very stuff of college life.

▪ Parades are the very stuff of Protestant politics.

▪ We have looked upon it almost as convertible with thought, of which we have called it the very stuff and process.

▪ What are these other than the very stuff of economic development?

thing

▪ There was an outcry against Hollywood, the very thing Hays and Zukor had tried to avoid.

▪ To be jealous implied an involvement, a relationship, the very things she was fighting against.

▪ This conversation was getting too intimate - the very thing she wanted to avoid.

▪ He then does just that very thing himself!

▪ Tonight he must face the very thing he had always dreaded.

▪ The very thing they had been screaming about for donkeys years.

▪ The movement exposed the very thing she had come expecting to find: a large jute bag.

▪ So he divides men by language barriers, and scatters them abroad - the very thing they were trying to insure against.

thought

▪ My throat hurts again at the very thought!

▪ I was paralysed with fear at the very thought of making eye contact with them, let alone playing the teacher.

▪ The very thought stiffened her body in his arms and she all but scowled at him.

▪ The very thought left him feeling as if there was a great pit where his stomach should be.

▪ Others hate the very thought of them.

▪ Mrs Carrow would have one of those panic attacks at the very thought.

▪ Sometimes the very thought made him feel strangely out of place in the swinging sixties.

▪ The very thought made him feel warm inside.

word

▪ The very word imperialism is modern.

▪ The very word filled the nation with fear.

▪ The very word, whether used as noun or as a verb, is dismissive.

▪ Little Pete and Ellie who used to hang on the very words of Uncle John.

▪ Words like coward, stupid or effeminate should probably never be used unless the client has used that very word himself.

▪ The very word seven or seventh occurs twice seven times in the passage.

▪ Perhaps your very words are what must represent us to posterity.

▪ In logic when you have a problem, the very words of the puzzle contain the answer.