Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary - nature

(natures) Frequency: The word is one of the 1500 most common words in English. 1. Nature is all the animals, plants, and other things in the world that are not made by people, and all the events and processes that are not caused by people. ...grasses that grow wild in nature. ...the ecological balance of nature. N-UNCOUNT see also Mother Nature 2. The nature of something is its basic quality or character. Mr Sharp would not comment on the nature of the issues being investigated. ...the ambitious nature of the programme... The rise of a major power is both economic and military in nature. N-SING: with supp, oft n N, also by/in N 3. Someone’s nature is their character, which they show by the way they behave. Jeya feels that her ambitious nature made her unsuitable for an arranged marriage... She trusted people. That was her nature... He was by nature affectionate. N-SING: with poss, also by N see also human nature 4. If you want to get back to nature, you want to return to a simpler way of living. She was very anxious to get away from cities and back to nature. PHRASE: PHR after v 5. If you say that something has a particular characteristic by its nature or by its very nature, you mean that things of that type always have that characteristic. Peacekeeping, by its nature, makes pre-planning difficult... One could argue that smoking, by its very nature, is addictive. PHRASE: N inflects, PHR with cl 6. Some people talk about a call of nature when referring politely to the need to go to the toilet. I’m afraid I have to answer a call of nature. PHRASE: PHR after v c darkgreen]politeness 7. If you say that something is in the nature of things, you mean that you would expect it to happen in the circumstances mentioned. Many have already died, and in the nature of things many more will die. PHRASE: PHR with cl 8. If you say that one thing is in the nature of another, you mean that it is like the other thing. It was in the nature of a debate rather than an argument. PHRASE: PHR n, usu v-link PHR 9. If a way of behaving is second nature to you, you do it almost without thinking because it is easy for you or obvious to you. Planning ahead had always come as second nature to her... It’s not easy at first, but it soon becomes second nature. PHRASE: v-link PHR, oft PHR to n