(answers, answering, answered)
Frequency: The word is one of the 700 most common words in English.
1.
When you answer someone who has asked you something, you say something back to them.
Just answer the question...
He paused before answering...
'When?' asked Alba, 'Tonight', answered Tom...
Williams answered that he had no specific proposals yet.
VERB: V n, V, V with quote, V that
2.
An answer is something that you say when you answer someone.
Without waiting for an answer, he turned and went in through the door...
I don't quite know what to say in answer to your question.
= reply, response
N-COUNT: also in N to n
3.
If you say that someone will not take no for an answer, you mean that they go on trying to make you agree to something even after you have refused.
He would never take no for an answer.
PHRASE: with brd-neg
4.
If you answer a letter or advertisement, you write to the person who wrote it.
She answered an advert for a job as a cook.
VERB: V n, also V
5.
An answer is a letter that you write to someone who has written to you.
I wrote to him but I never had an answer back...
She wrote to Roosevelt's secretary in answer to his letter of the day before.
= reply, response
N-COUNT: also in N to n
6.
When you answer the telephone, you pick it up when it rings. When you answer the door, you open it when you hear a knock or the bell.
She answered her phone on the first ring...
A middle-aged woman answered the door.
VERB: V n, V n, also V
•
Answer is also a noun.
I knocked at the front door and there was no answer.
N-COUNT: usu sing
7.
An answer to a problem is a solution to it.
There are no easy answers to the problems facing the economy...
Prison is not the answer for most young offenders...
N-COUNT: oft N to n
8.
Someone's answer to a question in a test or quiz is what they write or say in an attempt to give the facts that are asked for. The answer to a question is the fact that was asked for.
Simply marking an answer wrong will not help the pupil to get future examples correct...
N-COUNT: oft N to n
9.
When you answer a question in a test or quiz, you write or say something in an attempt to give the facts that are asked for.
To obtain her degree, she answered 81 questions over 10 papers.
VERB: V n
10.
Your answer to something that someone has said or done is what you say or do in response to it or in defence of yourself.
In answer to speculation that she wouldn't finish the race, she boldly declared her intention of winning it.
= reply, response
N-COUNT: also in N to n
11.
If you answer something that someone has said or done, you respond to it.
He answered her smile with one of his own...
That statement seemed designed to answer criticism of allied bombing missions.
= counter
VERB: V n with n, V n, also V n by -ing
12.
If something answers a need or purpose, it satisfies it, because it has the right qualities.
We provide specially designed shopping trolleys to answer the needs of parents with young children.
= satisfy
VERB: V n
13.
If someone or something answers a particular description or answers to it, they have the characteristics described.
Two men answering the description of the suspects tried to enter Switzerland...
The Japanese never built any aircraft remotely answering to this description.
= fit
VERB: V n, V to n