Relief – Word of the Day 5

We are looking at a new word every day that is being used in the British media about the Olympics. You can see a translation, example sentence and definition. Then read a short article containing the word and its common phrases. Plus learn a few more bits of vocabulary that a re written in bold and explained in the vocabulary glossary below

 
Olympic Word of the day No#5 –

RELIEF

 
sollievo, alivio, soulagement, kabartma, помощь, 救済, 緩解, допомогу, ulga, ارتياح, megkönnyebbülés, ανακούφιση, рељеф, 구조, תבליט, úľava
 
 

Definition

Noun: a feeling of relaxation and reassurance after anxiety or distress

Example: It was such a relief to get his exam results and get his place at university
 
 

Olympic Story

What a relief! The goldrush has finally started for the Olympic host nation and Team GB. First it was the rowing pair Helen Glover and Heather Stanning and then the already legendary cyclist, Bradley Wiggins that landed Britiain’s first gold medals of these games.

There had been some earlier silver and bronzes won by the Brits, but the nation collectively breathed a sigh of relief as we finally came first in an event. Some great chances of placing first had already been wasted, most notably Mark Cavendish in the Road Cycling event, so it was a comfort to finally get the ultimate prize.

Team GB management had predicted before the Games that we would collect around 70 medals, but they had already downgraded that estimate to around 60 after the first few days. I’m sure now, everyone is expecting that the floodgates will open and see the gold medals snowball. London 2012 Chairman, Sebastian Coe said that, “Winning is infectious” and that Team GB was now “in full stride“.

So, people in the UK are hoping that there’s plenty more where that came from!

What’s your opinion?

Will the Brits start to win lots of medals now?
Is 60 medals too high an estimate?

Vocabulary Glossary

goldrush

here – winning lots of sporting events and gold medals being won

to breathe/heave a sigh of relief

to blow out air and make a osund to show that you are suddenly happy again after being worried about sth

sth to waste sth

to have the chance/opportunity to do sth good, but then not to do it, i.e. to miss the chance/dd>

to downgrade sth

to reduce sth to a lower level of grade or importance

the floodgates will open

after a long wait, suddenly it will be possible for sth to happen a lot

to snowball

to increase rapidly in size/importance

infectious

here – to quickly influence other people

to be in full stride

to be progressing at a good speed/ moving forward at the best speed

there’s plenty more where that came from

there will be more than one occasion where this thing happens, in fact there will be LOTS more

Posted by Bren Brennan on Aug 2 2012. Filed under London Olympics, Vocabulary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry