| / English Dictionary |
TURN ON
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (verb)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Become hostile towards
Example:
The dog suddenly turned on the mailman
Classified under:
Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.
Hypernyms (to "turn on" is one way to...):
change (undergo a change; become different in essence; losing one's or its original nature)
Sentence frames:
Something is ----ing PP
Somebody ----s PP
Sense 2
Meaning:
Get high, stoned, or drugged
Example:
He trips every weekend
Synonyms:
get off; trip; trip out; turn on
Classified under:
Sentence frames:
Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s on something
Sense 3
Meaning:
Cause to operate by flipping a switch
Example:
turn on the stereo
Synonyms:
switch on; turn on
Classified under:
Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging
Hypernyms (to "turn on" is one way to...):
flip; switch; throw (cause to go on or to be engaged or set in operation)
Sentence frame:
Somebody ----s something
Sense 4
Meaning:
Stimulate sexually
Example:
This movie usually arouses the male audience
Synonyms:
arouse; excite; sex; turn on; wind up
Classified under:
Hypernyms (to "turn on" is one way to...):
excite; shake; shake up; stimulate; stir (stir the feelings, emotions, or peace of)
Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "turn on"):
tempt (try to seduce)
Sentence frames:
Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody
Sentence example:
The performance is likely to turn on Sue
Derivation:
turn-on (something causing excitement or stimulating interest)
Sense 5
Meaning:
Cause to be agitated, excited, or roused
Example:
The speaker charged up the crowd with his inflammatory remarks
Synonyms:
agitate; charge; charge up; commove; excite; rouse; turn on
Classified under:
Verbs of feeling
Hypernyms (to "turn on" is one way to...):
disturb; trouble; upset (move deeply)
Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "turn on"):
hype up; psych up (get excited or stimulated)
bother (make nervous or agitated)
pother (make upset or troubled)
electrify (excite suddenly and intensely)
Sentence frames:
Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody
Derivation:
turn-on (something causing excitement or stimulating interest)
Sense 6
Meaning:
Produce suddenly or automatically
Example:
turn on the waterworks
Classified under:
Verbs of seeing, hearing, feeling
Hypernyms (to "turn on" is one way to...):
bring forth; produce (bring out for display)
Sentence frame:
Somebody ----s something
Sense 7
Meaning:
Be contingent on
Example:
Your grade will depends on your homework
Synonyms:
depend on; depend upon; devolve on; hinge on; hinge upon; ride; turn on
Classified under:
Verbs of being, having, spatial relations
Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "turn on"):
build on; build upon; repose on; rest on (be based on; of theories and claims, for example)
Sentence frames:
Something ----s somebody
Something ----s something
Context examples:
“This is insufferably hot,” said Miss Crawford, when they had taken one turn on the terrace, and were drawing a second time to the door in the middle which opened to the wilderness.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
His face was burned of a reddish colour, as bright as a flower-pot, and in spite of his age (for he was only forty at the time of which I speak) it was shot with lines, which deepened if he were in any way perturbed, so that I have seen him turn on the instant from a youngish man to an elderly.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
It's a backwards analogy, but we are actually using light to turn on and off a biological switch, said Emmanuel Tzanakakis, professor of chemical and biological engineering at the School of Engineering at Tufts University and corresponding author of the study.
(Researchers Develop Insulin-Producing Cells Activated by Light for Diabetes, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)
To search for a potential pain reliever with fewer side effects than current opioids, a research team from the University of North Carolina and the University of California, San Francisco, screened more than 3 million compounds for those that may be able to turn on the Gi-mediated pathway, but not beta-arrestin.
(Designing more effective opioids, NIH)
Using NASA's NuSTAR space telescope and a fast camera called ULTRACAM on the William Herschel Observatory in La Palma, Spain, scientists have been able to measure the distance that particles in jets travel before they "turn on" and become bright sources of light. This distance is called the "acceleration zone."
(NuSTAR Probes Black Hole Jet Mystery, NASA)
The Allen Institute group, in collaboration with researchers from the J. Craig Venter Institute, found that the rosehip cells turn on a unique set of genes, a genetic signature not seen in any of the mouse brain cell types they've studied.
(Mysterious New Type of Human Brain Cell Discovered, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)
He stood at Miss Temple's side; he was speaking low in her ear: I did not doubt he was making disclosures of my villainy; and I watched her eye with painful anxiety, expecting every moment to see its dark orb turn on me a glance of repugnance and contempt. I listened too; and as I happened to be seated quite at the top of the room, I caught most of what he said: its import relieved me from immediate apprehension.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
However, when we got to the pathway outside the churchyard, where there was a puddle of water, remaining from the storm, I daubed my feet with mud, using each foot in turn on the other, so that as we went home, no one, in case we should meet any one, should notice my bare feet.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
At the time, I set it down to some idiosyncratic, personal distaste, and merely wondered at the acuteness of the symptoms; but I have since had reason to believe the cause to lie much deeper in the nature of man, and to turn on some nobler hinge than the principle of hatred.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
Exactly how our brains turn on these regulating systems and behaviors isn’t clear.
(Brain cells that cool the body, NIH)
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