noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a chemical weapons ban
▪ a global chemical weapons ban
a murder weapon (=the gun, knife etc used to murder someone)
▪ Have they found the murder weapon?
a propaganda weapon (=an event, situation etc that can be used for propaganda)
▪ Sporting success was an important propaganda weapon during the Cold War.
a weapons inspection (=to see what weapons someone has)
▪ The government has agreed to allow UN weapons inspections in the country.
an arms/weapons deal (=one which involves selling weapons)
▪ A number of recent arms deals have embarrassed the government.
an illegal weapon
▪ He was charged with carrying an illegal weapon.
chemical weapon
chemical weapons (=poisonous chemicals used as weapons)
▪ a global treaty banning chemical weapons
concealed weapon
▪ a concealed weapon
deploy forces/troops/weapons etc
▪ NATO’s decision to deploy cruise missiles
fire a gun/weapon/rifle etc (=make it shoot)
▪ the sound of a gun being fired
lethal weapon
▪ a lethal weapon
nuclear bomb/weapon/missile etc
▪ the threat of nuclear attack
▪ concern about the country’s nuclear weapons program
offensive weapon
▪ Jan was convicted of possessing an offensive weapon.
potent weapon
▪ A good company pension scheme remains a potent weapon for attracting staff.
strategic arms/weapons (=weapons designed to reach an enemy country from your own)
▪ strategic nuclear missiles
weapons inspector
weapons of mass destruction (=weapons intended to cause a lot of death and destruction)
▪ The country is believed to have the potential to develop weapons of mass destruction.
weapons of mass destruction
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
atomic
▪ When Clement Attlee became Prime Minister in 1945, he was no enthusiast of atomic weapons, but that programme proceeded.
▪ B-29s were known around the world as the bombers that carried atomic weapons.
▪ There is some residual radiation, indicating that atomic weapons were in use approximately five thousand years ago.
▪ In 1974 congressional committees began raising questions in public about the security and usefulness of the atomic weapons.
▪ Nowhere was this more evident than in the marked differences in the handling of collaboration in the atomic and conventional weapons fields.
▪ Under Eisenhower, the United States developed smaller atomic weapons that could be used tactically on the battlefield.
▪ They argued that the use of atomic weapons violated both conventional and customary international law.
▪ Furthermore, he saw incompatibility in Britain spending large sums on atomic weapons whilst accepting Marshall Aid.
automatic
▪ Its automatic weapons chatter nightly, and mortars crump in reply.
▪ Pepper spray is not automatic weapons fire.
▪ At present only automatic weapons are covered.
▪ At that point, small arms and automatic weapons opened up.
▪ The Renault was surrounded by guns, some of them automatic weapons.
▪ One guy had a canteen on his hip which was shot off; it was automatic weapons.
▪ Figures are now running in front of us, shots are fired from automatic weapons, the running figures fall down.
▪ They wore black boots, green military fatigues, had their faces covered with black ski masks and carried automatic weapons.
biological
▪ The accord also authorized the creation of a mechanism to monitor the observance of conventions banning biological weapons.
▪ He has been especially dodgy about agreements meant to prevent him from developing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
▪ Mitterrand suggested extending Bush's measures to chemical and biological as well as conventional weapons and applying the plan globally.
▪ A second biological weapons inspection team, which arrived on Sept. 20, was expected to complete its mission in early October.
▪ Experts say chemical, biological and nuclear weapons are available as never before.
▪ Some are trying to obtain nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
▪ We tend to focus on nuclear but chemical and biological weapons, while not as devastating, would be plenty bad.
chemical
▪ The thought of a beleaguered Ceausescu in possession of chemical weapons is a chilling one.
▪ Many of its chemical weapons are kept in aging and unsafe facilities.
▪ The completion of multilateral negotiations on the abolition of chemical weapons will be pursued.
▪ Resolution 44/115 on chemical weapons was adopted without a vote.
▪ More than a score of nations now seeks or possesses chemical weapons.
▪ If we refuse to ratify, some governments will use our refusal as an excuse to keep their chemical weapons.
conventional
▪ With conventional weapons, the destruction is not so drastic, far more controlled, and more accurate and economical.
▪ It was battle scarred, but mountains are not vulnerable to conventional weapons.
▪ Armies are the main conventional weapon and have been around for over five millennia in various forms.
▪ Nowhere was this more evident than in the marked differences in the handling of collaboration in the atomic and conventional weapons fields.
▪ Mitterrand suggested extending Bush's measures to chemical and biological as well as conventional weapons and applying the plan globally.
▪ Propose new disarmament initiatives covering all categories of conventional and nuclear weapons.
▪ It was believed that the Soviets already had superiority in conventional armies and weapons.
▪ Development studies During the last decade, the international trade in conventional weapons has almost doubled in volume every five years.
deadly
▪ The trebuchet; a twelfth-century example of this deadly weapon, capable of enormous destruction as a siege engine.
▪ Xavier Hicks, model student, was being charged with assault with a deadly weapon and possession of a concealed weapon.
▪ My hands and feet are registered with the local constabulary as deadly weapons.
▪ He was booked into the Vista jail on charges of assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer.
heavy
▪ But this week's guerrillas numbered more than 1,000, some of them with heavy weapons.
▪ There were no signs that heavy weapons or aircraft had been brought to the area, and little fortification was visible.
▪ Intense shooting and the boom of heavy weapons erupted in the capital, Lome, before dawn.
▪ It has monitored the movement of heavy weapons into storage areas and formerly warring troops into barracks.
▪ And it will plan how to monitor heavy weapons if a ceasefire takes hold.
▪ Once in Beirut, all heavy weapons would be collected from the militias.
▪ More than the heavy weapons, this banal accoutrement of a rudimentary accountancy scared me shitless.
▪ She had been hit violently on the back of the head with a heavy weapon.
lethal
▪ Bearing in mind that the knife is a lethal weapon, what happens if you get it wrong?
▪ Roughly half of child killers used a gun, while 16 percent used their own hands and feet as lethal weapons.
▪ As I couldn't take Lisabeth with me, it was the nearest thing I had to a lethal weapon.
▪ Being in charge of a lethal weapon, so to speak.
▪ Sentencing Harris, Lord Sutherland, told him that attempted murders involving such lethal weapons were becoming far too prevalent.
▪ Atkinson has a lethal weapon in Dean Saunders - recruited from Liverpool - who is aiming to wreck United's dream.
▪ For statistics alone are unlikely to stop a 17-year-old putting his foot down in a lethal weapon.
▪ But in the wrong hands they are as lethal a weapon as a gun.
new
▪ Development of all major new weapons programmes would nevertheless continue but over a longer time span.
▪ Carroll said the military is needlessly wasting money on new weapons and too many overseas commitments, such as peacekeeping in Bosnia.
▪ A new weapon had been discovered.
▪ Anyone who wins the use of a new weapon ought to have a chance to recognize its dangers.
▪ It would give a clear message: that the nuclear-weapon states have stopped developing new nuclear weapons.
▪ They intend to spend more on service pay as well as on new weapons and new weapons technology.
▪ More successful than any of these methods, however, looks to be a new biological weapon, a nematode.
▪ If you are lucky, you can get a new weapon.
nuclear
▪ Draw battlefield nuclear weapons back from the front line.
▪ Later some of the Bevanites, though not Mr Bevan himself, added opposition to nuclear weapons to their list of policies.
▪ In the ensuing years much larger nuclear weapons were developed.
▪ Distinctions between categories of nuclear weapons should therefore be discouraged.
offensive
▪ Paul Lowe, 27, and William Young, 21, both of Rochdale, were each charged with carrying offensive weapons.
▪ He appealed to Khrushchev to remove the offensive weapons under United Nations supervision.
▪ Two Haverhill men have been charged with threatening behaviour and possession of offensive weapons.
▪ Police had considered taking action against David as they said he was carrying an offensive weapon his bendy rubber truncheon.
▪ He was convicted of carrying an offensive weapon and got a 28-day suspended sentence and £200 fine.
▪ The commuter was prosecuted, found guilty of carrying an offensive weapon, and fined.
▪ Conventional troop cuts will be accompanied by a reorganization of units in charge of offensive nuclear weapons.
potent
▪ Then she realised that her other hand held a much more potent weapon.
▪ The Khans will tell you that many have now replaced the rifle with another potent weapon, the squash racquet.
▪ But a good company pension scheme remains a potent weapon when it comes to attracting and keeping staff.
▪ Control of an almost adult king was a potent political weapon.
powerful
▪ Fear is one of the Dark Lord's most powerful weapons yet some of his army are defeated by it.
▪ Procrastination or partial responses are powerful weapons.
▪ New powers to refuse wastes and revoke licences are potentially powerful weapons in controlling the movement and safe disposal of wastes.
▪ This was a very powerful and awesome weapon.
▪ They are powerful if unreliable weapons, and each one is a valuable artifact, encrusted with baroque decoration and intricate designs.
▪ Potentially the most powerful of support weapons were Air Force and Navy jets.
▪ Manipulation People who manipulate use guilt and blame-they are powerful weapons to get people to do something.
▪ It is an extraordinarily powerful political weapon.
secret
▪ His secret weapon has been a three-wood he first used last June.
▪ And Bannister, who weighs 22 stone and has size 17 feet, could be Cadle's secret weapon.
▪ Further, there was the frightening possibility of new secret weapons.
▪ So long as she stayed silent she had a secret weapon.
▪ Yet Drake had been aided by a secret weapon.
▪ But his real secret weapon is an amazing talent for simultaneously combining slide with fretted notes.
▪ The next day she carried her secret weapon to school in her satchel.
strategic
▪ I told him also that Britain's only strategic weapon would be the minimum deterrent constituted by Trident.
▪ But by 1990 the world was no longer bipolar, except in strategic nuclear weapons and delivery systems.
▪ The United States considers strategic weapons negotiations the most pressing issue to be sorted out at the summit.
▪ This meant that the world would be free of strategic nuclear weapons by the year 1996.
▪ The United States still had a substantial lead in strategic weapons.
tactical
▪ But these women also employed medical definitions of physical and mental weakness as an effective tactical weapon in the battle with men.
▪ The amount of uranium in the belt is about four billion tons, enough to make roughly a trillion tactical nuclear weapons.
▪ Beneath this umbrella of deterrence are tactical weapons.
▪ Shevardnadze also proposed a halt in nuclear testing and cuts in tactical nuclear weapons.
▪ Denis Healey was again in the forefront of the efforts to devise satisfactory guidelines for the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
▪ The possibility of using it as a tactical weapon against the king-duke was too valuable an asset to be abandoned.
▪ Your mission is to boldly go about the galaxy destroying the Klingon forces which possess many new tactical weapons and abilities.
■ NOUN
assault
▪ The manufacture and sale of nine types of foreign and domestic semi-automatic assault weapons would also be prohibited for three years.
▪ Manufacturers continue to glut communities with handguns, assault weapons and ammunition.
▪ But the ban helped drop the number of assault weapons traced to crimes to 3, 504&038;.
▪ I will veto any attempt to repeal the assault weapons ban or the Brady bill.
▪ You want to add more magazines to the assault weapons so they can spray and kill even more people.
▪ Dole said the assault weapons ban did not work, because many of the weapons were altered to make them legal.
▪ He still stands for repealing the assault weapons ban.
inspector
▪ The new chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, may make a difference.
murder
▪ Hayes found the murder weapon, a flat iron with blood and Maria's hair upon it, in a cupboard.
▪ The murder weapon, a Kalashnikov free of fingerprints, was left at the scene in a plastic bag.
▪ I think this was the murder weapon.
▪ There may be some account of what happened to the murder weapon.
▪ After all, anybody who read the description of the murder weapon in the Saturday papers could have sent the knives.
▪ A murder weapon in that case was never recovered.
▪ My only direct experience with murder weapons was Cluedo, but even I knew enough not to mess with it.
▪ Nico and Molto had been clever enough not to search for the murder weapon, too.
system
▪ But each also has the capability of being built into defensive weapons systems.
▪ To put it mildly, this is great news for the companies that stand to make the weapons systems.
▪ When a contract for a weapon system is received, a project manager is appointed.
▪ Traditionally, ships and weapons systems are developed by different contractors with little coordination during the design phase.
▪ Many of the weapons systems that we use now are bigger than before and have longer ranges, and so on.
▪ There were certain additional restrictions upon the types of weapon systems that could be deployed within these limits.
▪ Yet it is not clear that this promise can be translated into any effective weapon systems.
▪ Using wholly incompatible weapons systems and riven by language difficulties, the troops lack the capacity to fight as coordinated units.
■ VERB
arm
▪ They ride fierce war boars and are armed with a hand weapon.
▪ On the other hand, to arm Anacreon with all weapons of warfare.
▪ This is particularly true for a defensive system based on comparatively small, independent units, armed with short-range weapons.
▪ Hand Gunners are highly effective warriors armed with primitive gunpowder weapons.
▪ Many locals keep weapons at home, ostensibly for hunting but mostly for show, while religious leaders need armed bodyguards.
▪ The women, armed with smuggled weapons, explosives and bottles of acid, were joined by male inmates.
ban
▪ The accord also authorized the creation of a mechanism to monitor the observance of conventions banning biological weapons.
▪ A decree in February banned the sale of weapons to countries involved in armed conflict.
▪ Next week he will appeal to the Senate to ratify a global treaty to ban chemical weapons.
▪ City and county government have the option to ban weapons on public property.
build
▪ But each also has the capability of being built into defensive weapons systems.
▪ Has there been an improvement in stopping smuggling and building weapons of mass destruction?
▪ It is true that a country does not need a nuclear power programme to be able to build a nuclear weapon.
▪ Then he took it a step further -- he built a medieval weapon.
▪ They began a crash program to modernize and strengthen their fleet and to build nuclear weapons with ICBMs to carry them.
▪ Malykh said Mayak was built to produce weapons for the former Soviet Union.
carry
▪ For these purposes they would also tend to wear the most heavily reinforced boots and might occasionally carry weapons of some kind.
▪ They wore black boots, green military fatigues, had their faces covered with black ski masks and carried automatic weapons.
▪ Paul Lowe, 27, and William Young, 21, both of Rochdale, were each charged with carrying offensive weapons.
▪ It always struck me that they had enough people to carry all the weapons.
▪ They wanted the Cossacks to be allowed to carry weapons to protect themselves.
▪ Police had considered taking action against David as they said he was carrying an offensive weapon his bendy rubber truncheon.
conceal
▪ In order to conceal weapons, secret pockets were sewn into the linings of coats.
▪ Six more states, including Texas, implemented laws on Jan. 1 that allow citizens to carry concealed weapons.
▪ A kindergartner gets caught with a butter knife in his school backpack and is expelled for carrying a concealed weapon.
▪ Xavier Hicks, model student, was being charged with assault with a deadly weapon and possession of a concealed weapon.
▪ The 8 by 14-inch paper outlines an argument that the Arizona Constitution already guarantees the right to carry concealed weapons.
deploy
▪ Johnson has deployed two fearsome weapons: her connections and her charm.
▪ So the United States has no deployed chemical weapons today and will have none in the future.
▪ The president deployed the weapon with which he has calmed past discontents, saying he would announce his heir-apparent.
▪ They tell us that we should not manufacture and deploy nuclear weapons.
develop
▪ By these criteria, some high-tech weapons are cost-effective to develop, even if enemy weapons stagnate.
▪ Under Eisenhower, the United States developed smaller atomic weapons that could be used tactically on the battlefield.
▪ It would make it harder to develop new weapons, but not impossible.
fire
▪ He then fires the weapon, which automatically steers itself toward the target and dives on to its vulnerable upper parts.
▪ According to legend, anyone who ever fired the weapon died of a broken heart or cardiac arrest.
▪ For those sixty seconds you are not a legitimate target, nor can you fire your own weapon.
▪ The troops marched around him, firing their automatic weapons.
▪ As if in slow motion they both aimed and fired their weapons.
▪ Everyone around me seems to be firing their weapons.
▪ Figures are now running in front of us, shots are fired from automatic weapons, the running figures fall down.
▪ Mobs burned tyres in the streets, and the prudent stayed at home while soldiers drove around firing their weapons.
use
▪ And so we used the small weapons we had.
▪ As boys grow older, they readily turn to wrestling and combative play using make-believe weapons of war and violence.
▪ It's not the same plutonium as used in weapons and the nuclear industry.
▪ They left radioactive material in Moscow and said they were going to use that kind of weapon....
▪ The huge horns are used both as a weapon and as a shield.
▪ Basil used his weapons with restraint and on legitimate targets.
▪ The soldiers escorting it used their weapons to help destroy the creatures.
▪ Linked to the machine by electrodes, he had learned the best way to use every weapon ever invented.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a double-edged sword/weapon
▪ But the potential financial boost is a double-edged sword.
▪ It's been said before that being well-known is a double-edged sword.
▪ That can be a double-edged sword, commercially and artistically.
▪ The competition rules must be regarded as a double-edged sword by businesses.
▪ This, however, rapidly proved a double-edged weapon.
▪ Throughout our history, judicial review has been a double-edged sword.
biological weapons/warfare/attack etc
▪ He knew then that the mystery of Titron was only partly explained by the secret biological warfare establishment.
▪ Regional conflicts - along with the proliferation of missiles and nuclear, chemical and biological weapons - present growing dangers.
▪ Schwarzkopf strongly defended his field commanders from allegations that they were careless about chemical and biological weapons.
▪ We tend to focus on nuclear but chemical and biological weapons, while not as devastating, would be plenty bad.
secret weapon
▪ And Bannister, who weighs 22 stone and has size 17 feet, could be Cadle's secret weapon.
▪ But his real secret weapon is an amazing talent for simultaneously combining slide with fretted notes.
▪ Further, there was the frightening possibility of new secret weapons.
▪ His secret weapon has been a three-wood he first used last June.
▪ So long as she stayed silent she had a secret weapon.
▪ The next day she carried her secret weapon to school in her satchel.
▪ Yet Drake had been aided by a secret weapon.
tactical weapon/missile
▪ Beneath this umbrella of deterrence are tactical weapons.
▪ But these women also employed medical definitions of physical and mental weakness as an effective tactical weapon in the battle with men.
▪ The possibility of using it as a tactical weapon against the king-duke was too valuable an asset to be abandoned.
▪ Your mission is to boldly go about the galaxy destroying the Klingon forces which possess many new tactical weapons and abilities.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ a treaty to reduce the number of nuclear weapons
▪ Community rejection of gangs is a powerful weapon against them.
▪ He was arrested by police and charged with carrying an offensive weapon.
▪ Police are still looking for the murder weapon.
▪ Police have not yet found the murder weapon.
▪ The men were finally persuaded to come out and hand over their weapons to the police.
▪ The three men had blackened faces and were carrying weapons.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ During the early weeks of the 1968 Tet Offensive, the Duper was his weapon of choice.
▪ Everyone who looks upon it sees a different weapon.
▪ He stopped short of making recommendations about weapons programs in his 90-minute meeting at the White House.
▪ No weapon was seen in the 12: 20 p.m. holdup.
▪ They wanted the Cossacks to be allowed to carry weapons to protect themselves.
▪ They weren't carrying weapons, so Agnes assumed they were politicians.
▪ We will find the same lack of weapons in Cretan art, more than 10, 000 years after the Palcolithic.
▪ Would not it be far better to seek an effective non-proliferation treaty than to go for a new generation of nuclear weapons?