Meaning & use
adverse condition
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Meanings
nouncountableformal
A situation or set of circumstances that makes something difficult, harmful, or likely to fail.
Grammar: Countable, so it can be singular (an adverse condition) or plural (adverse conditions), which is the more common form.
Patterns
- in adverse conditions
- under adverse conditions
- adverse weather conditions
- survive adverse conditions
The rescue team kept searching in adverse conditions, with heavy rain and strong winds.
Seeds can stay alive for years under adverse conditions and then start growing.
The report says the bridge was built to hold up in adverse conditions.
nouncountabletechnical
A negative factor or side effect that harms health, business, or performance.
Grammar: Often used in the plural in medical, legal, and business writing: adverse conditions, adverse effects.
Patterns
- adverse conditions for something
- create adverse conditions
- adverse economic conditions
- adverse conditions affect something
Small shops closed one after another because of adverse economic conditions.
Doctors watched for any adverse conditions that appeared after the treatment.
The company blamed adverse market conditions for the drop in sales.
Word forms
| plural | adverse conditions |
|---|
Common combinations
- adverse weather conditions
- Flights were canceled because of adverse weather conditions.
- in adverse conditions
- The plants grow well even in adverse conditions.
- adverse economic conditions
- Many families moved away during the adverse economic conditions of that decade.
- under adverse conditions
- The study shows how people make decisions under adverse conditions.
- survive adverse conditions
- These insects can survive adverse conditions by going into a deep sleep.
Synonyms and how they differ
- hardship
- Hardship means serious suffering or difficulty, usually over a period of time; adverse conditions can be short and are more neutral and technical in tone.
- difficulty
- Difficulty is a general everyday word for a problem; adverse conditions suggests outside circumstances that actively work against you.
- setback
- A setback is one specific event that delays progress, while adverse conditions describe an ongoing situation.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: adverse condition or averse? adverse condition or advertise?
adverse condition vs averse
Averse is an adjective meaning unwilling or opposed, and it is followed by to: I'm not averse to the idea. Adverse describes something harmful or unfavorable: adverse conditions.
adverse condition vs advertise
These sound similar but are unrelated. Advertise means to promote a product or service publicly.
Practice
The mountain rescue team worked all night in ______ conditions.
Choose one answer.
Adverse is the adjective that means harmful or unfavorable and fits before the noun conditions. Averse means unwilling and cannot describe weather; adversity is a noun; adversely is an adverb and would need a verb, as in 'adversely affected the team'.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “adverse condition”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.