📖 S — The English dictionary · page 126

swot — Everyday, meaning 1: (UK informal, teasing) A swot is a pupil who studies very hard, sometimes said in a mocking way.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (UK informal) To swot or swot up is to study hard, especially before a test.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: SWOT (capitals) is short for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats, a way to plan or judge an idea in business or school projects.↗ Example: She's a swot and always does extra homework.↗ · I need to swot up on my times tables.↗ · He spent the weekend swotting for his test.↗ · Don't call people swots for working hard.↗ · We did a SWOT analysis of our school fair plan.↗ · Being a swot paid off when she won the quiz.↗

sycamore — Everyday, meaning 1: (UK, Ireland) A large maple tree with five-pointed leaves and winged seeds that spin like helicopters as they fall.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (USA, Canada) A tall plane tree with bark that peels off in patches of white, green and brown.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: (Bible) A kind of fig tree in the Middle East; in the story of Zacchaeus, a short man climbs a sycamore to see Jesus.↗ Everyday, meaning 4: The pale wood of these trees, used for furniture and kitchen spoons.↗ Example: We threw sycamore seeds from the bridge and watched them spin down.↗ · The sycamore in the playground gives lots of shade in summer.↗ · In autumn the sycamore leaves turn yellow and fall.↗ · The sycamores along the river in Ohio have white, patchy bark.↗ · Zacchaeus was too short to see over the crowd, so he climbed a sycamore tree.↗ · My wooden spoon is made of sycamore.↗ · Seeds with wings, like the sycamore's, can travel far from the parent tree.↗ · He destroyed their vines with hail, and their sycamore-trees with frost.↗ (Writings PSA.78.47, JPS 1917)↗ · 'The bricks are fallen, but we will build with hewn stones; the sycamores are cut down, but cedars will we put in their place.'↗ (Prophets ISA.9.9, JPS 1917)↗ · And the king made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones, and cedars made he to be as the sycamore-trees that are in the Lowland, for abundance.↗ (Prophets 1KI.10.27, JPS 1917)↗

sycophancy — Everyday, meaning 1: (formal) Sycophancy is flattering and agreeing with an important or powerful person too much, to please them and get something for yourself.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: For computers and AI, sycophancy means a chatbot telling people what they want to hear instead of what is true.↗ Example: The king's advisers were full of sycophancy and never told him bad news.↗ · His sycophancy towards the head teacher annoyed the class.↗ · Sycophancy is not real friendship.↗ · The AI's sycophancy meant it agreed with every wrong answer.↗ · In the play, the servant's sycophancy hides his plan to steal.↗ · Honest feedback is better than sycophancy.↗ · She rejected the sycophancy of people who only liked her money.↗

sycophantic — Everyday, meaning 1: Sycophantic means praising and agreeing with a powerful or important person too much, in a fake way, to get something from them.↗ Example: The sycophantic servants told the king every idea he had was brilliant.↗ · His sycophantic praise of the boss made everyone cringe.↗ · Don't be sycophantic; give your honest opinion.↗ · In the fable, the fox's sycophantic words tricked the crow into dropping the cheese.↗ · The emperor's sycophantic advisers praised his invisible clothes.↗ · A good friend tells you the truth, not sycophantic flattery.↗ · The film's villain was surrounded by sycophantic followers.↗

syllabary — In Jewish tradition, meaning 1: A set of written signs in which each sign stands for a whole syllable, not a single sound.↗ Example: Did it spring from the Egyptian liioro- fflyphics, or from the cuneiform systems of the Assyrians, or from the hieroglyphics of the Hittites, or from the Syllabary (Mordell, The Origin of Letters and Numerals according to Sefer Yetzirah (1914))↗

syllabic — Everyday, meaning 1: Syllabic means about syllables, the beats or sound parts that words are divided into.↗ e.g. "hap-py" has two syllables.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A syllabic writing system (a syllabary) uses one symbol for each syllable, like Japanese kana or the Cherokee syllabary.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: (phonetics) A syllabic sound, like the "n" in "button" or "l" in "bottle", makes a syllable on its own without a vowel.↗ Example: Japanese hiragana is a syllabic script.↗ · We clapped the syllabic beats of our names.↗ · A haiku has a strict syllabic pattern: 5, 7, 5.↗ · The Cherokee leader Sequoyah invented a syllabic writing system.↗ · In "bottle", the final l is syllabic.↗ · Syllabic poems count syllables, not stresses.↗ · Breaking a long word into syllabic parts helps you spell it.↗ · The purpose of the author was to e ..pliiisizc the superiority of alphabetic writing over the non-alphabetic writing (ideographic and syllabic) used by all the nations of antiquity, and even now by a great portion of mankind.↗ (Mordell, The Origin of Letters and Numerals according to Sefer Yetzirah (1914))↗

syllable — Everyday, meaning 1: A syllable is a part of a word that has one vowel sound; you can count syllables by clapping a word: «di-no-saur» has three syllables.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A word with one syllable, like «cat», is called a one-syllable word or monosyllable.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: Not a syllable means not a single word at all.↗ Example: «Elephant» has three syllables: el-e-phant.↗ · Clap the syllables in your name.↗ · «Dog» has one syllable.↗ · A haiku has five syllables in the first line.↗ · In «banana», the middle syllable is stressed.↗ · Break long words into syllables to spell them.↗ · «Hippopotamus» has five syllables.↗ · He did not answer a syllable, but went on eating, and afterwards returned to his work.↗

symbiotic — Everyday, meaning 1: (science) Symbiotic describes a close relationship between two different kinds of living things that live together, especially one where both are helped: bees and flowers, clownfish and sea anemones.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: Symbiotic also describes any relationship between people, groups or things that help each other.↗ e.g. "The farm and the village had a symbiotic relationship."↗ Example: Clownfish and sea anemones have a symbiotic relationship.↗ · Our gut has symbiotic bacteria that help digest food.↗ · A lichen is a symbiotic partnership of a fungus and an alga.↗ · Bees and flowers are symbiotic: bees get food, flowers get pollinated.↗ · The shop and the café next door have a symbiotic relationship.↗ · Cleaner fish eat parasites from bigger fish in a symbiotic deal.↗ · Coral lives in a symbiotic relationship with tiny algae.↗

symbol — Everyday, meaning 1: A symbol is a sign, shape or picture that stands for something else: + means add, a red heart means love.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A symbol can be an object or idea that represents something bigger: the dove is a symbol of peace.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: In science, a chemical symbol is the short letter name for an element.↗ e.g. O for oxygen.↗ Example: The symbol + means add.↗ · The < symbol means «less than»: 3 < 5.↗ · On the map, a blue P is the symbol for parking.↗ · A skull and crossbones is a symbol for poison.↗ · The dove is a symbol of peace.↗ · The chemical symbol for gold is Au.↗ · The maple leaf is a symbol of Canada.↗ · Look at the key to find out what each symbol means.↗ · Thus running up the hillside, his teeth chattering all the way, he drew near to Inyan, the sacred symbol.↗ · Elsewhere in the SY, the ‘tongue’ (or ‘wedge’) appears as the symbol of a central balance between two extremities, e.g. (Sefer Yetzirah, Sefaria community translation)↗ · Wind is of course the herald of the storm, the Biblical symbol par excellence of the divine theophany, making wind a potent symbol of divine imminence.↗ (Sefer Yetzirah, Sefaria community translation)↗ · or does exist outside of Himself ; His substance is the foundation of all, and all things bear His imprint and are symbols of His intelligence."↗ (Sefer Yetzirah, Westcott 1893)↗ · Like the symbols of their sons are their altars, and their Asherim are by the leafy trees, upon the high hills.↗ (Prophets JER.17.2, JPS 1917)↗

symbolic — Everyday, meaning 1: Symbolic means standing for an idea or thing as a sign or symbol: a dove is symbolic of peace.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: Symbolic also describes an action done to show feelings or ideas rather than for practical use: a symbolic gesture.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: (maths) Symbolic means using letters and signs instead of words.↗ Example: The dove is symbolic of peace.↗ · Red roses are symbolic of love.↗ · For Christians, the cross is symbolic of Jesus's death and love.↗ · Planting a tree was a symbolic act for the school.↗ · In the story, the dark forest is symbolic of fear.↗ · In maths we use symbolic notation, like x + 3 = 7.↗ · The handshake was a symbolic end to the quarrel.↗ · Lieutenant, love, and lack of money--that is a symbolic triangle, or much the same as the half of the shattered die of Fortune.↗ · The appearance of this root in the SY’s introductory paragraph serves as a reminder that although we embark upon a text rich in vivid, grounded symbolism—even anthropomorphism—we should not hasten to take such symbolic language overly literally.↗ (Sefer Yetzirah, Sefaria community translation)↗ · It is unclear if the author or editor of this section is employing Hebrew terms in a novel way, is unfamiliar with human physiology, or is using animal organs to some symbolic effect, or some combination thereof.↗ (Sefer Yetzirah, Sefaria community translation)↗

symbolically — Everyday, meaning 1: Symbolically means in a way that uses a symbol to stand for an idea, rather than in a real or practical way.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: In maths, symbolically means using signs and letters, like + and x, instead of words.↗ Example: The dove symbolically stands for peace.↗ · At the end of the year we symbolically handed the class key to the next year group.↗ · (church) In baptism, water symbolically washes the person clean.↗ · In the story, the dark forest symbolically shows the girl's fear.↗ · We wrote the problem symbolically as 3 × n = 12.↗ · Planting a tree was a symbolically important start for the new school.↗ · This idea is then symbolically explained in the next paragraph.↗ (Sefer Yetzirah, Kalisch 1877)↗

symbolism — In Jewish tradition, meaning 1: The use of symbols to stand for ideas or qualities.↗ Example: Nonetheless, English translators have usually shied away from the this-worldly symbolism of the ‘Holy Wind’, much preferring immaterial ‘Spirit’ either out of theological embarrassment or deference to tradition.↗ (Sefer Yetzirah, Sefaria community translation)↗ · The appearance of this root in the SY’s introductory paragraph serves as a reminder that although we embark upon a text rich in vivid, grounded symbolism—even anthropomorphism—we should not hasten to take such symbolic language overly literally.↗ (Sefer Yetzirah, Sefaria community translation)↗

symbolization — In Jewish tradition, meaning 1: The act of showing an idea by means of a symbol.↗ Example: The numeral one 1 and the zero 0 are a fitting symbolization of the two opposing principles concerning which the Sefer Yetzirah iv> "23) says as follows: (Mordell, The Origin of Letters and Numerals according to Sefer Yetzirah (1914))↗ · Thus, the Sefer Yetzirah may have believed two di- bits, 0 and j , a tilting symbolization of the creation, out of chaos or nothing, of the universe, by the power of the Deity.↗ (Mordell, The Origin of Letters and Numerals according to Sefer Yetzirah (1914))↗

symbolize — Everyday, meaning 1: To symbolize is to stand for an idea or thing, so that it means something more than itself.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: To symbolize is to be a sign of something: a dove can symbolize peace.↗ Example: A red heart can symbolize love.↗ · The dove symbolizes peace.↗ · The hour-glass symbolizes time passing.↗ · Many Kabalists have shown how the Ten Sephiruth are symbolized by the zig-zag lightning flash.↗ (Sefer Yetzirah, Westcott 1893)↗ · The twelve simple letters ה״ו״ז ח״ט״י ל״נ״ם ע״צ״ק symbolize, as it were, the organs of speaking, thinking, (Sefer Yetzirah, Kalisch 1877)↗ · Seven [34] double letters, ,בגד כפרת shall, as it were, symbolize wisdom, wealth, fruitfulness, life, dominion, peace and beauty.↗ (Sefer Yetzirah, Kalisch 1877)↗

symmetry — Everyday, meaning 1: Symmetry is the state of having two halves that match exactly, or of being balanced in shape or form.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: Symmetry in a person means a pleasing, even shape of the body.↗ Example: A butterfly's wings show symmetry.↗ · The square has four lines of symmetry.↗ · She was perfect in her symmetry and proportions.↗

sympathetic — Everyday, meaning 1: Sympathetic means showing that you understand and care about someone's sadness or problems: a sympathetic friend.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: Sympathetic to an idea or group means agreeing with it or supporting it.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: A sympathetic character in a story is one readers like and care about.↗ Example: The nurse was very sympathetic when I hurt my arm.↗ · My friends were sympathetic when my cat died.↗ · The head teacher is sympathetic to our idea for a garden.↗ · The hero is a sympathetic character because he is brave and kind.↗ · She gave me a sympathetic smile.↗ · Not everyone was sympathetic to his complaints.↗ · But, when the two heroes met face to face, both were seized with an impulse of sympathetic admiration for each other.↗