rock1
/rɒk
/- Groundwater will contain the minerals dissolved as the water moves through soil and rock materials.
- Sulfates are a combination of sulfur and oxygen and are a part of naturally occurring minerals in some soil and rock formations that contain groundwater.
- Lighter than the surrounding solid rock, this liquid magma rises, cools, and crystallizes beneath Earth's surface.
- Of course they have to break out of jail, and the posse who is hot on their tail gets turned back by a sniper in the rocks above.
- At the centre of the building is a courtyard; in fact, the original patch of trees, rocks and earth that was here from the very start.
- More than half of Mandela's sentence was spent on Robben Island, a windswept rock surrounded by the treacherous seas of the Cape of Good Hope.
Synonyms
- Karst landscapes are developed wherever soluble carbonate rocks outcrop and where surplus rainfall is available to dissolve the limestone.
- The cave offers an in-depth view of the immense layers of limestone rock formed by the sedimented shells.
- Should he have intervened, therefore preventing David's death, or did he do the right thing by just staying behind the rocks?
- He lies on a rock, a mountain looming above him and his naked body partially covered by a white dress.
- It was so clearly identifiable as his work from the outset that I kept expecting either Ricardo Montalban or Kate Winslet to pop out from behind a rock.
- Tiger also faced abuse at the hands of grade school classmates, who once even tied him to a tree and threw rocks at him.
- The film has one of cinema's most beautiful uses of an open exterior, when the husband throws a rock towards the nuclear plant just after dusk.
- If you must ripple the pond, throw a small rock first and pay careful attention.
Synonyms
- Instead of working with flashy, expensive rocks, he preferred to use semiprecious stones - and his wits.
Synonyms
- Mia really has become the rock in this world, his key to becoming a better man.
- It was only sprung on us in the sense that at any point, we could have said ‘no’ and faced the rock that was our boss.
Synonyms
- While his willingness to explore the darker side of marriage makes his movie more perceptive than many others, the film loses its way when love hits the rocks.
Phrases
between a rock and a hard place
get one's rocks off
on the rocks
Derivatives
rockless
rocklet
rock-like
- Thus, you will be confined to somewhat small areas on which you can construct your base, generally represented by a hard red rock-like surface.
- Rock wool loose-fill insulation is similar to fiberglass except that it is spun from blast furnace slag and other rock-like materials instead of molten glass.
- Even a rock-like drop in the dollar during the last two quarters of 2003 has brought no relief from chronically high US trade and current account deficits.
Origin
Middle English: from Old French rocque, from medieval Latin rocca, of unknown ultimate origin.
The hard rock that makes up much of the earth came into medieval English from Old French rocque, which can be traced back to medieval Latin rocca but no further. The classical Latin word was petra, the source of petrify. People have been caught between a rock and a hard place since the 1920s, first of all in Arizona and California. Also American is on the rocks meaning a drink ‘on ice’, first recorded in 1946, while the slang term for a precious stone is 1920s. In France the modern form of the word, roc developed the form rocaille to describe the decoration using shells and pebbles fashionable in the 18th century. In the 19th century this was changed by French workmen to rococo, originally to mean something old-fashioned, but now used to describe the art of the 18th century. Rock meaning ‘to move to and fro’ is an Old English word. Rock music was originally rock and roll, which is first found in 1951, although a song called ‘Rock and Roll’ came out in 1934. Rock and roll combined black rhythm and blues and white country or ‘hillbilly’ music. Elvis Presley's first single, ‘That's All Right Mama’ and Bill Haley's ‘Rock Around the Clock’, both released in 1954, are often considered the first rock and roll records, but similar-sounding music was produced in the 1930s and 1940s by black performers like Big Joe Turner and Fats Domino.
If you are off your rocker you are mad or crazy. A rocker here is a curved piece of wood or metal placed under a chair or cradle so that it can rock backwards and forwards. In the early 1960s rockers were also youths who liked rock music, leather clothing, and motorcycles, and were the sworn enemies of the mods (short for modernists), who were noted for their smart appearance, motor scooters, and fondness for soul music.
Rhymes
rock2
/rɒk/- I think I spent a week in a row rocking him to sleep, just speaking it over.
- She rocked herself to and fro, and the tears gathered in her eyes and slowly trickled down her cheeks.
- He rocked his body at the mike, rolled his eyes, pulled back his lips in elegant disdain, and finished each sentence with a sensual guttural trail.
Synonyms
- He is awake in the middle of the night and he feels as if the hotel is being rocked by an earthquake.
- An explosion rocks downtown London and shuts down the city.
- Both films take place in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake that rocked northern Iran in 1990, killing nearly 50,000 people.
Synonyms
- This incident rocked the Canadian province of Newfoundland.
- When tumultuous events rocked the world he soon forgot her.
- Corporate scandals have recently rocked the business world, shocked shareholders and the public at large, and led to the downfall of several large-scale firms.
Synonyms
- While my musical strength may be in the Classical realm, I also know that Little Richard really rocked in his day.
- In this case, the screen was bigger, the score was louder and the crowd was rocking.
- If the crowd is not rocking to this one beat, you gotta get it out and get the next record in.
- I don't know but, either way, they rock.
- Because they rocked and we wished we could have stayed longer.
- " The typical comment is, ' Dude, you rock!, '
- He beat out no less than Sting and Paul McCartney, two rock idols who performed their own nominated songs.
- The debt owed to past blues musicians by the giants of the rock industry - Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin among others - becomes apparent when you listen to their music.
- The music is a bizarre score of upbeat string numbers, samba tunes, jazz numbers, rock ballads, and every other style thrown together in a peculiar 1980s-esque synthesized sort of way.
- It made me want to run out and start a rockabilly band to pay tribute to rock's greatest geek.
Phrases
rock the boat
Phrasal verbs
rock out
rock up
Origin
Late Old English roccian, probably from a Germanic base meaning 'remove, move'; related to Dutch rukken 'jerk, tug' and German rücken 'move'. The noun dates from the early 19th century.