Phrases & Expressions

A careful guess about an amount that is deliberately on the low side.

• Even on a conservative estimate, the festival brought more than five million pounds into the local economy.
• According to a conservative estimate, repairing the damaged bridge will take at least six months.

A continuous flow of people, vehicles or things arriving one after another.

• The new hospital receives a constant stream of patients from the surrounding villages and towns.
• Office workers receive a constant stream of emails and messages, which makes it hard to concentrate.

A connection between two things in which a change in one goes together with a change in the other.

• For their project, the students looked for a correlation between hours of sleep and exam marks in their year group.
• There is a clear correlation between education and income: graduates generally earn more over their lifetime.

A lack of agreement between two sets of figures or facts that ought to match.

• Journalists found a large discrepancy between official and independent estimates of unemployment in the region.
• Auditors spotted a discrepancy between the company's accounts and its bank statements.

An unhappy existence full of hard work and problems.

• Working night shifts in a warehouse for the minimum wage was a dog's life, she said.
• In the nineteenth century, many factory workers led a dog's life, working long hours in terrible conditions.

A rival or competitor who is very strong and difficult to beat.

• The chess champion proved a formidable opponent, winning every game in less than an hour.
• In the debate final, our team faced a formidable opponent with years of experience.

A reputation for being very skilled, powerful or strict, which makes people respect or fear someone.

• The professor has a formidable reputation for failing students who submit work late.
• The restaurant earned a formidable reputation within a year of opening, and tables are now hard to book.

A very difficult job or problem that needs a great deal of effort and skill.

• Clearing up the town after the floods was a formidable task for the council.
• Learning a new language as an adult can be a formidable task, but regular practice makes it manageable.

An unfriendly response that shows people do not welcome you or your ideas.

• The minister was given a frosty reception when she visited the flooded town a week after the disaster.
• When I suggested working at the weekend, I got a frosty reception from my colleagues.

A situation or subject that is unclear because the rules do not clearly apply to it.

• The use of AI tools to write student essays is still a grey area at many universities.
• Whether app-based delivery riders should count as employees is a grey area in employment law in many countries.