Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary - relation

(relations) Frequency: The word is one of the 1500 most common words in English. 1. Relations between people, groups, or countries are contacts between them and the way in which they behave towards each other. Greece has established full diplomatic relations with Israel... N-COUNT: usu pl see also industrial relations, public relations, race relations 2. If you talk about the relation of one thing to another, you are talking about the ways in which they are connected. It is a question of the relation of ethics to economics. N-COUNT: usu sing, usu N of/to/between n 3. Your relations are the members of your family. ...visits to friends and relations... = relative N-COUNT see also poor relation 4. You can talk about something in relation to something else when you want to compare the size, condition, or position of the two things. The money he’d been ordered to pay was minimal in relation to his salary. PREP-PHRASE 5. If something is said or done in relation to a subject, it is said or done in connection with that subject. ...a question which has been asked many times in relation to Irish affairs... PREP-PHRASE