TOEFL Prep Flashcards
mal se comporter
to act up
revenir à (total / nombre)
to amount to
avoir pour objectif de faire
to aim at
permettre
to allow for
se conformer à
to adhere to (Alan Sugar adhered to his basic rules of business life)
avoir pour résultat cumulé
to add up
en faire davantage, remplacer temporairement un supérieur
to act up
prendre des mesures utiles
to act on (The time to act on has now arrived)
expliquer, rendre compte
to account for
respecter, se soumettre à qqch
to abide by
représenter qqch (pour un nombre)
to account for
prendre en considération
to allow for (Project officer said the alcohol screening scheme allowed for earlier intervention to tackle potential problems)
revenir à équivaloir à
to amount to
disparaitre
to die away, to die out
se calmer, s’atténuer
to die down
supprimer
to do away with
être voué à
to be doomed to
tirer vers le bas
to drag down
s’éterniser
to drag on
imaginer
to dream up
s’éloigner (de l’eau coule sous les ponts)
to drift apart (Japan and SK have drifted apart in recent months, with tempers flaring in a dispute over how Japan should put its history to rest)
faire baisser
to drive down
faire partir
to drive out
se laisser distancier
to drop behind
abandonner ses études
to drop out of (school)
donner des détails sur
to elaborate on, to expand on
entreprendre, se lancer dans
to embark on/upon (they embark upon what has historically been a very slippery slope)
empiéter sur
to encroach on/upon, to impinge on/upon (The agressive antiterrorism programs championed by the Bush administration are encroaching on civil liberties)
disparaître progressivement
to fade out/ to fade away
abandonner
to move away from (IRA moving away from violence)
avoir des prédispositions pour
to be cut out for (are men cut out for the job market?)
évoquer
to conjure up (The movie conjures up the excitement of being a teenager in 1960s London)
s’opposer avec force à
to cry out against (not the only voice crying against the war)
toucher sans distinction
to cut across (cutting across all social classes)
isolé de
cut off from (cut off from everyday life)
faire un peu de
to dabble in/with (He was a businessman who dabbled in politics)
fouiller dans
to delve into (delving into his private life)
rompre avec
to depart from (But Penguin books is about to depart from convention)
Priver de
to deprive OF (He will deprive them of something to loathe)
le tempérament, le mauvais caractère
temper f
aplanir, équilibrer
to even out (which aim to even out differences between rich and poor regions in the EU)
faire face à, accepter la réalité de
to face up to (Beijing refuses to face up to its own aggressions and employs revisionist history to rationalize its assertive claims and ambitions)
rabâcher
to harp on sth
se lier d’amitié avec, se ranger du pdv de
to fall in with (After falling with the wrong crowd and struggling to get to grips with education, he reveals how he now has a brighter future ahead)
baisser, diminuer, décroître
to fall off (Chinese arms sales fell off significantly last year)
Incomber à
to fall to (it fell to him to end this experiment and the system that lay behind it)
concorder avec
to fit in with, to tie in with (the study fits in with previous work that has shown the illicit substance adversely affects male fertility)
imposer à
to foist on (Global warming, he says, was a setup from the beginning, a wrongheaded theory foisted upon the public by unscrupulous scientists)
Contourner
to get around (there are other ways to get around the problem)
dissimuler
to gloss over (Japanese history books glossed over the truth about Imperial Japan’s behavior abroad)
divulger
to give away (the area they are about to enter will give away secrets)
céder à
to give in to (It is essential that governments never give in to blackmail from terrorists or criminals, if security is ever to be maintained)
revenir inlassablement sur
to hammer away at (various administrations hammered away at America’s debt, reducing the burden from the wartime level of more than …)
être réticent à
to hand back from (The governors of both parties are handing back from making endorsements)
se prémunir contre
to hedge against / to safeguard against (Buying commodities is an alternative way of hedging against inflation, but there is the danger of being sucked in at the top of the market)
ralentir
to hold back (Weakness in private consumption appeared to be the main factor holding back growth).
traquer
to hunt down (Barack Obama said that he would send troops into Pakistan to hunt down terrorists even without local permission if warranted)
avoir un impact sur
to impact on (the report will impact on the renewal of the BBC’s Charter)
restreindre
to keep down (to keep down costs)
mettre de côté
to lay aside, to sweep aside (such restrictions would be swept aside under the government’s plan)
vivre aux dépens de
to live off (people live off the welfare state)
être à la hauteur
to live up to (lived up to expectations) / To measure up to
revenir sur, évoquer
to look back on (Republican members looked back on the election that catapulted their party into majority)
regarder de haut, mépriser
to look down on (Many Europeans are looking down on Americans)
Avoir hâte de travailler
to look forward to working
Attendre avec impatience
to look forward to
être perdant
to lose out on (companies must not risk losing out on profits altogether)
rassembler
to muster up (New york Magazine has finally mustered up the courage to state the blindingly obvious: London is the capital of the world)
Contribuer à / Renoncer à
to opt in / out (The German government opted out of a multimillion-euro research effort to build a European search engine that would compete with Google)
participer à, prendre part
to partake in/of
Contenir (pour des qualités, dans le sens de évoquer), prendre une part, un morceau (pour de la nourriture ou du vin)
to partage of (The film also partakes of some of the best pulp fiction clichés)
introduire
to phase in
redémarrer
to pick up (as job growth picked up, wages surged in the second half of last year before falling back this year)
Supprimer progressivement
to phase out (the government decided to phase out nuclear power by 2020)
minimiser
to play down (to be sure, several institutions have played down their exposure to the subprime market)
devancer
to play ahead of (only China, India and Ireland have pulled ahead of the competition faster)
se retirer de
To pull out of (His only credible challenger for nomination pulled out of the campaign)
faire adopter
to push through (Tony Blair pushed through the reform of Clause Four, the Labour Party’s commitment to socialism, against union opposition)
Faire passer une idée, un message
to put across (Universities haven’t succeeded in putting across the message of this greater diversity)
incarcérer
to put away
mettre sur le compte de
to put down to (That a husband and wife tend to have the same body mass index can be put down to the phenomenon of assertive mating)
supporter
to put up with (He was no longer prepared to put up with the situation in West London)
compter avec
to reckon with (China is indeed a force to be reckoned with)
recourir à
to resort to (Countries in the region had all gone through difficult times, but had not resorted to violence)
être fondé sur
rest on/upon (The new policy rests upon a perception that early intervention in mental illness is crucial)
en revenir à
to revert to (The Tories reverted to their traditional color, when M.Hague gave a presentation on the iniquities of the EU treaty)
Exclure
to rule out (The gov ruled out introducing a privacy law last night, despite calls from MPs for greater protection for the public from media intrusion)
se heurter à
to run up against (A coalition of organizations has run up against resistance among policymakers)
mener à terme
to see through (Brooks says he has made a personal commitment to the organisers to see the project through)
s’occuper de, veiller à
to see to (We will see to it that it does not happen again)
s’atteler à une tâche
to set about (I will set about the tasks of reforming of NHS)
refuser de
to be set against (The government is set against any fundamental reform of the exams)
déclencher
to set off, to trigger off (He hoped it would set off a train of events that would benefit the Cuban people)
rendre plus attrayant, donner du piquant
to sex up (He has vehemently denied “sexing up” evidence in an important dossier about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction)
se distinguer de
to stand out against (The brand-new brightly painted hospital stands out against the background of an urban wasteland)
prendre du recul par rapport à
to step back from (Both sides need to step back from the brink for the sake of democracy)
être sur le point de faire qqc h
to be on the brink of doing sth
Déconcerter
to take aback (The prime minister seems taken aback by the suggestion)
être dupé, trompé
to be taken in (Taken in by the dangerous allure of spy dramas)
présenter de manière positive
to talk up (two developers are talking up plans to to build 55.000 homes in this sand-scoured landscape)
atténuer, édulcorer
to water/ tone down
friser/ frôler
to verge on/upon (An urge to legislate verging on mania)
rivaliser pour
to vie for (India and Pakistan are vying for the support of China, and over the past months the foreign ministers of both countries have visited Beijing).
S’amenuiser
to wear off (Every new leader gets a honeymoon: Mr Cameron’s is wearing off, just as Mr.Brown’s)
comparer, mettre en balance
to weight against (the risks should be weighted against the need for research)
