A field guide explains: "The stream's current runs fastest at the outside of each bend, where it cuts into the bank. Enter the water downstream of the rapids." As used here, "current" means what?

A science text explains: "On the Moon the same rock weighed a sixth of what it weighed on Earth, yet its mass had not changed. Nothing had been added to it and nothing chipped off." As used here, "mass" means what?

A lab manual directs: "Stir until the salt vanishes and the liquid runs clear. Samples from the top and the bottom taste equally salty, and the filter traps no grains. You now have a solution." Here, "solution" means what?

An article states: "Bridge the gap with a copper strip and the bulb lights at once; bridge it with rubber and the bulb stays dark. Copper is the conductor here." As used in the article, "conductor" means what?

A geology text explains: "Earth's outer shell is cracked into plates. Each one creeps a few centimeters a year, carrying a whole continent with it, and quakes strike where two grind past each other." Here, "plates" means what?

A biology text notes: "Under the microscope the leaf breaks into thousands of tiny walled boxes. Every plant and animal is built from them, and nothing smaller in the leaf is alive. These are cells." Here, "cells" means what?

An article explains: "Pour the two liters from a tall bottle into a wide jug. The level drops and the juice looks like less, but the jug takes two liters and no more, so the volume is unchanged." Here, "volume" means what?

A physics text explains: "An inflated balloon weighs more than a flat one and fills more room, so the air inside counts as matter. So does the steam off a kettle, though neither can be held." Here, "matter" means what?

A building report warns: "Crews pour the foundation first, since it carries the weight of every floor above it down into the soil. A cracked one tilts the whole structure." As used here, "foundation" means what?

A river study notes: "The Wabash gathers rain across three states and empties into the larger Ohio, which rolls on toward the Mississippi. A storm over this tributary lifts the Ohio for hundreds of miles." "Tributary" means what?

A science article explains: "A fast river scours its bed and runs cloudy for miles. Where it slows near the coast the water clears, because the sediment settles, and the delta grows taller each flood." "Sediment" means what?

A biology article notes: "Desert foxes are born with oversized ears that shed heat. Pups with the biggest ears survive the summer and breed, so after many generations nearly every fox carries this adaptation." "Adaptation" means what?

A science writer reports: "The flood-swollen river turned hungry last spring, swallowing forty feet of bank in a single week and leaving a raw cliff of clay behind it." Calling the river "hungry" suggests what?

A history text records: "The general's choice to cross the marsh proved costly. Within two days fever had spread through the camp, and the supply wagons were abandoned in the mud." "Costly" here signals what?

An engineering report explains: "We test each beam in tension, pulling it from both ends until the metal stretches." Outside the lab, "tension" usually names a nervous feeling. As used in the report, it means what?

A transit report states: "At rush hour, cars will creep through the pass, while the new bus lane beside them keeps moving at a steady speed." What does the word "creep" tell readers about the cars?

A farm report notes: "Rain has fallen far below normal for eleven straight months. Wells that ran all summer have failed and the reservoir is at a tenth, but officials say the drought could break by spring." "Drought" means what?

A geology report states: "The mountain has been sleeping for two hundred years, yet instruments still track the heat beneath it, and it could wake with only weeks of warning." "Sleeping" here means what?

A weather report explains: "Fog forms when air near the ground cools to its dew point, the temperature at which water vapor begins to condense." As used here, "dew point" names a place where dew collects on the ground.

A study states: "The wetland works like a sponge, soaking up runoff after storms and releasing it slowly for weeks." Calling the wetland a sponge means it keeps storm runoff from ever reaching nearby streams.