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seen off, diffuse, not susceptible



 
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ESL Forums | English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
Expression: "With reference to the appended email please be..." | Some descriptions from 'Cross-country Snow'
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seen off, diffuse, not susceptible #1 (permalink) Sun Aug 05, 2007 23:25 pm   seen off, diffuse, not susceptible
 

Hello, everybody.
I'd like to ask a question about the meaning of 'seen off', 'diffuse' and 'not susceptible' in the following passage:

By the last quarter of the twentieth century Europe was an important regional economic power but no longer a major world power. The American economic superiority of the early and mid-twentieth century was also lost in the second half of the century as Europe recovered from its civil wars, more countries industrialized and Japan became just as wealthy. America's global military power had seen off the limited challenge by the Soviet Union but it provided little real gain in power in circumstances where security problems were increasingly diffuse and not susceptible to military solutions.

I think that 'had seen off' means 'had experienced', 'diffuse' means 'widespread and indistinct' and 'not susceptible' means 'that cannot be solved by'.

Do I understand the meanings correctly?
Klpno
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Joined: 17 Jun 2007
Posts: 485

seen off, diffuse, not susceptible #2 (permalink) Mon Aug 06, 2007 11:19 am   seen off, diffuse, not susceptible
 

.
Seen off = watched depart; here, it means that US power remained intact while Soviet power came and went.

Diffuse = what you said.

Not susceptible = what you said.
.
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seen off, diffuse, not susceptible #3 (permalink) Mon Aug 06, 2007 11:28 am   seen off, diffuse, not susceptible
 

Thank you very much, Mister Micawber!!!
Klpno
I'm here quite often ;-)


Joined: 17 Jun 2007
Posts: 485

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