window
Definition
An opening in a wall or vehicle fitted with glass
To remember it
Picture the large, black-framed glass structure in front of you. It frames a view of blue sky and clouds, just like how 'window' frames the outside world. Think of looking out through this window to see the sky and clouds.
Examples
- A1
Please open the window — it is very hot in here and we need some fresh air to come in.
- A1
She looked out of the window at the rain falling on the street below and decided not to go outside.
- A2
The stained glass windows in the old cathedral were made by craftsmen hundreds of years ago and are still beautiful today.
- A2
Please have your passport ready at the check-in window — the staff will need to see it before they can process your booking.
- B1
The concept of a "window of opportunity" — a limited period during which conditions are favourable for a particular action and after which the opportunity may be lost — is widely used in diplomacy, business, and medicine: the window during which negotiations can succeed, the window during which a merger makes financial sense, the window during which a stroke patient can benefit from clot-busting medication.
- B1
Window shopping — browsing shop displays without the intention to buy — has been transformed by the internet, which allows consumers to browse products at any time without leaving home, blurring the distinction between looking and buying and enabling a form of extended browsing and comparison that has changed the retail experience profoundly.
- B2
The history of the window in architecture is a history of competing functional, aesthetic, and symbolic demands: the need to admit light and air while providing thermal insulation and weather protection, the desire to frame views and create visual connections between interior and exterior, and the symbolic associations of transparency and openness that have made glazed facades a dominant feature of modernist corporate architecture, expressing (critics argue, falsely) the ideals of transparency and accountability.
- B2
The "window of tolerance" concept in trauma therapy — the range of arousal states within which a person can function effectively without being overwhelmed by hyperarousal (anxiety, panic) or hypoarousal (numbing, dissociation) — provides a practical framework for understanding how traumatic experience narrows the range within which effective engagement with the world is possible and how therapeutic work can gradually widen this window by building the capacity to tolerate difficult emotional states without being overwhelmed.
