apieceofmetalcutinto aspecialshapetofitinto alockwhere it can beturnedtoopensomething, such as adoor, or tostartsomething, such as acarengine:
I put the key into theignition.
keynoun(MOVABLE PART)
[C]
any of the set ofmovablepartsthat youpresswithyourfingerson acomputeror othermachinetoproduceletters,numbers, orsymbols, or on amusicalinstrumenttoproducesound:
pianokeys
Press theshiftkey to write incapitalletters.
keynoun(IMPORTANT PART)
[U]
the mostimportantpartofachievingsomething orexplainingasituation:
Revision is the key to good writing.
keynoun(MUSICAL NOTES)
[C]music
a set ofmusicalnotesbasedon oneparticularnote:
the key of C
keynoun(LIST OF SYMBOLS)
[C]
alistof thesymbolsused in amaporbookwithexplanationsof what theymean:
Akeyissue in the book is an analysis of the experience with the application of economic instruments, such as charges and tradable discharge permits.
From theCambridge English Corpus
Journalists were among thekeyplayers, encouraging critical debate and public negotiation.
From theCambridge English Corpus
The international author list includes most of the currentkeyplayers in impact-related studies and the quality of the individual contributions is correspondingly high.
From theCambridge English Corpus
Particularly this latter section is informed by ' ' behind-the-scenes stories, ' ' based on copious interviews withkeyplayers in any given project.
From theCambridge English Corpus
The reports include an executive summary that facilitates a quick and comprehensive understanding of thekeypoints addressed by the report.
From theCambridge English Corpus
The top half of the students was allocated to thekeyclass and the poorer half to the ordinary one.
From theCambridge English Corpus
Here we add in the mediating variables of dietary change to examine what effect they have on thiskeyelement of psychological well-being.
From theCambridge English Corpus
Since thekeyissue is the psychological pressure that law can exert on every individual mind, the law must be clear, well diffused, and foreseeable.
From theCambridge English Corpus
Could the polity sustain pockets of autonomy inkeyborder regions without risking the destabilisation of its interior?
From theCambridge English Corpus
It consists of representations forkeyelements within the design and relationships among them.
From theCambridge English Corpus
The process was reiterated until we felt confident that we had recoveredkeyarticles and those most frequently cited by the profession.
From theCambridge English Corpus
Within this, the cultural changes have a tempo based around these recognisable events, with namedkeyindividuals and short periods of analysis.
From theCambridge English Corpus
Answering these questions will bekeyto increasing adoption of biologically integrated farming systems.
From theCambridge English Corpus
In both of these studies maximising choice and control over one's life emerged askeythemes which underpinned these more specific outcomes.
From theCambridge English Corpus
On the basis of this sample, the article will explore threekeythemes.
From theCambridge English Corpus
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.
Collocationswithkey
key
These are words often used in combination withkey.
Click on a collocation to see more examples of it.
cryptographic key
Each message has to be encrypted using some cryptographic key that is known only to the intended receivers.
From
Wikipedia
This example is from Wikipedia and may be reused under a CC BY-SA license.
decryption key
What is relevant to this legislation is adecryptionkey.
From the
Hansard archive
Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under theOpen Parliament Licence v3.0
duplicate key
I understand that he escaped by opening the window shutter with a duplicate key, sawing through the window bars, and climbing 30 yards along a high coping.
From the
Hansard archive
Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under theOpen Parliament Licence v3.0
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.
This example is from Wikipedia and may be reused under a CC BY-SA license.