affair

affair
noun
1 event/situation
ADJECTIVE
▪ whole
▪

She saw the whole affair as a great joke.

▪ glittering, grand
▪

I knew that the wedding would be a grand affair.

▪ intimate, low-key, simple
▪ community, local
▪ messy, sad, sordid, sorry (esp. BrE), squalid (esp. BrE)
▪

the newspaper article that exposed this whole sordid affair

VERB + AFFAIR
▪ deal with, handle
▪

Many people have criticized the way the government handled the affair.

▪ be involved in
▪ investigate
PHRASES
▪ sb's involvement in the affair
▪

He has tried to play down his involvement in the affair.

▪ a state of affairs
▪

How did this state of affairs come about?

▪ wash your hands of the affair (= to refuse to be responsible for sth or involved in sth)
2 sexual relationship
ADJECTIVE
▪ brief, casual
▪ clandestine, illicit, secret
▪ adulterous, extramarital
▪

He had an extramarital affair with his secretary.

▪ passionate, steamy, torrid
▪ scandalous
▪ unhappy
▪ love, romantic, sexual
▪

a torrid love affair

▪ gay, homosexual, lesbian
▪ alleged
VERB + AFFAIR
▪ carry on, conduct, have
▪

He's having an affair with a colleague.

▪ cover up, deny
▪ expose
AFFAIR + VERB
▪ go on
▪

How long has the affair been going on?

PREPOSITION
▪ affair between
▪

It's the story of a secret affair between a married teacher and her teenage student.

▪ affair with
▪

an affair with a married man

3 sth that concerns one person/small group
ADJECTIVE
▪ family, sb's own, personal, private
▪

It's a family affair.

VERB + AFFAIR
▪ interfere in, meddle in
PHRASES
▪ sb's affair
▪

What I do at home is my affair.

▪ no affair of sb's
▪

That's no affair of yours.

4 affairs important matters
ADJECTIVE
▪ current
▪

a current-affairs magazine

▪ public
▪ human
▪ domestic, home, internal, national
▪ civic, community, local
▪ external, foreign, global, international, world
▪

the minister for foreign affairs

▪ business, financial, legal
▪ commercial, consumer, cultural, economic, environmental, military, political, religious, social
VERB + AFFAIRS
▪ administer, arrange, attend to, conduct, manage, run
▪

I am trying to arrange my father's financial affairs.

▪ get in order, put in order, set in order, settle, wind up
▪

She went back home to put her affairs in order before she died.

PHRASES
▪ affairs of state
▪

The Cabinet will be discussing certain affairs of state.

▪ a state of affairs
▪

the current state of affairs in schools


Collocations dictionary. 2013.

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  • Affair — Saltar a navegación, búsqueda Affair, relación amorosa casual, sin mayor importancia para sus participantes, la cual se centra en la seducción y entrega de placer. Contenido 1 ¿Por qué se provoca? 2 Etimología 3 Historia …   Wikipedia Español

  • affair — 1 Affair, business, concern, matter, thing come into comparison only when they are little more than vague or general terms meaning something done or dealt with. Some or rarely all are used interchangeably in certain similar collocations such as… …   New Dictionary of Synonyms

  • Affair — Af*fair ([a^]f*f[^a]r ), n. [OE. afere, affere, OF. afaire, F. affaire, fr. a faire to do; L.. ad + facere to do. See {Fact}, and cf. {Ado}.] 1. That which is done or is to be done; matter; concern; as, a difficult affair to manage; business of… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • affair — (n.) c.1300, what one has to do, from Anglo French afere, O.Fr. afaire (12c., Mod.Fr. affaire) business, event; rank, estate, from the infinitive phrase à faire to do, from L. ad to (see AD (Cf. ad )) + facere to do, make (see FACTITIOUS …   Etymology dictionary

  • affair — [n1] matter or business to be taken care of; happening activity assignment, avocation, calling, case, circumstance, concern, duty, employment, episode, event, hap, happening, incident, interest, job, mission, obligation, occupation, occurrence,… …   New thesaurus

  • affair — ► NOUN 1) an event of a specified kind or that has previously been referred to. 2) a matter that is a particular person s responsibility. 3) a love affair. 4) (affairs) matters of public interest and importance. ORIGIN from Old French à faire to… …   English terms dictionary

  • affair — [ə fer′] n. [ME afere < OFr afaire < a faire, to do < L ad , to + facere, DO1] 1. a thing to be done; business 2. [pl.] matters of business or concern 3. any matter, occurrence, or thing 4. a social function or gathering …   English World dictionary

  • affair — I noun activity, adventure, avocation, circumstance, duty, employment, enterprise, event, function, happening, incident, interest, matter, occasion, occupation, occurrence, profession, pursuit, subject, transaction, undertaking, work II index… …   Law dictionary

  • Affair — Part of a series on Love …   Wikipedia

  • affair — [[t]əfe͟ə(r)[/t]] ♦♦ affairs 1) N SING: the N If an event or a series of events has been mentioned and you want to talk about it again, you can refer to it as the affair. The government has mishandled the whole affair... The affair began when… …   English dictionary

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