Vocabulary list Unit 5

whistleblowing The strategy incorporates new policies to govern

fraud, corruption and whistle-blowing in the city
The court decided that the whistle-blowing was
O.K. because it potentially saved lives, but the
testimony crossed the line

defamation If the contents of the publication are untrue the law

of defamation provides prohibition.

No defamation occurs until the defamatory matter

is communicated to a third party.

contention source/area/point of This surface interval between leaving the bell and
contention entering the decompression chamber, became a
point of contention within the medical profession
bone of contention

avail to/of no avail This is a misconception that forest ecologists have

for years been at pains to correct, but to little avail.

An increasingly concerned international community

also sounded the alarm, but to no avail.
I have been looking for a recipe for sometime now,
but to no avail.

verification We had asked for some verifications from them

about their process and the answers just weren't
satisfactory.

Once in place, many of the tests and verifications

are repeated to assure workers that the payload and
its shuttle interfaces are working together.

embroil somebody/something in I became embroiled in an argument with the taxi

something driver.

prompt That has prompted investors to demand ratings

from more issuers of debt and to take the ratings
more seriously

interim Eventually an interim agreement on arms control

was reached.
 For those reasons I allow the appeal and I substitute
an interim care order.
Three years ago, Steve Fisher was fired and Ellerbe
promoted to interim coach just days before
preseason practice began

Roll in Rebecca usually rolls in around noon.

Chris finally rolled in at about 4:00 am.

non-disclosure It has been looking at buying companies involved in

agreement privatizations, and in many cases is bound by non-
disclosure agreements.

adapt to The children are finding it hard to adapt to the new

school.
Le Carré's latest novel is soon to be adapted for
television.
The materials in the book can be adapted for use
with older children.

alter The city centre has altered beyond recognition

(=changed very much).
Nothing can alter the fact that the refugees are our
responsibility.

amend Programs written in languages such as BASIC are

very easy to edit and amend.
He spoke to intelligence officers at several airbases
and made sure that certain records were amended

modify The recipe is modified and simplified by succeeding

generations of cooks.
The engines of the Atlas burned a modified aviation
 fuel, similar to kerosene, with liquid oxygen.
The biotech corporations argue that genetically
modified crops will put an end to food shortages in
the developing world.

unresponsive To The disease is totally unresponsive to conventional

treatment.
His warning fell on unresponsive ears (=was not
listened to).

mutate Viruses tend to mutate and to change their

characteristics over long periods of time.
If they fear Chaos, they begin to mutate in horrible
and painful ways.

transform When she smiled, her face was completely

transformed.
Of course it can be well worthwhile simply to
transform cultured tissue in this way.
These bodies can not be considered truly incorrupt
since the tissues are transformed into another
substance.

metamorphose into Fused, however, they metamorphosed into

something that conjured improbable visions.
The place metamorphosed into storage space.

The top-selling application was Microsoft Office.

Application

suite All the programs in the suite have a coherent design,

even when you start getting into their more complex
settings, and it's in this usability that McAfee is head
and shoulders above any of its rivals
malfunctions There is a comprehensive range of information
before them and their practised eye quickly detects
any malfunction.
There have been equipment malfunctions and
demanding superstars.

server be down The server’s down (=not working) again.

file/print server
All data is stored on a central file server.

buffer against/between Eastern Europe was important to Russia as a buffer

against the West.
The subsystems include texture mapping support,
double buffer colour animation and hardware image
processing.

crash The system crashed and I lost three hours’ worth of

work.
The cymbals crashed, and the symphony came to an
end.
My computer crashed, and we couldn't get it
working again.
You can crash at our place if you can't get a ride
home.

indecipherable His writing was tiny and indecipherable.

He also kept extensive parliamentary diaries, of
which six volumes survive, though his hand is
nearly indecipherable. Hurriedly written sentences
are very often indecipherable.
I had no idea what my boss was ordering in rapid-
fire requests to the busy chefs, and his translations
were indecipherable.

bug Custom-made software is often more reliable and

has fewer ‘bugs’ or faults.
configure Both offer myriad ways to configure automatic
searches.
Five years after Gomez launched the coral reef, it is
only now configuring itself into self-sustenance.
Windows is stuffed full of things you have to
configure or change before you can set up a printer,
for example.

convert to/into In 1983, the district converted all its junior high
newly/freshly converted
schools to schools of choice, doing away with
assignment by zone
The previously existing subduction zone is
converted into a suture zone marking where
the two continents are welded together
extinguish Her anger, newly kindled, needed something to
scorch and shrivel before it could be
extinguished.
It was not until early November 1991 that the
last of the oil well fires was extinguished.