to frack the land
- phrasal verb
- /fræk ðə lænd/
- Specialized
:
fracturar el terreno
- The company plans to frack the land near the town to access natural gas reserves.
Examples
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Environmental activists protested when they heard about plans to frack the land in their region.
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Before agreeing to frack the land, the farmers insisted on strict environmental safeguards.
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Don't frack the land without proper regulations!
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They want to frack the land for natural gas.
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Before agreeing to frack the land, the farmers insisted on strict environmental safeguards.
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Environmental activists protested when they heard about plans to frack the land in their region.
-
The company plans to frack the land near the town to access natural gas reserves.
Synonyms
To get oil or gas from deep rock by forcing high-pressure water and chemicals into the rock to break it
How Invasive
- Specialized
1
7.2
- Specialized
- Specialized
19
2.8
912
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
Given the provided sense of 'frack' (to fracture rock hydraulically) and the literal meaning of 'land', the phrase 'frack the land' is a straightforward compositional action: apply hydraulic fracturing to the land. There is no idiomatic or metaphorical shift here, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words would readily infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
Frack the land comes from a way of getting gas that breaks rock under the ground. Workers pump water and sand to make small cracks so the gas can flow, and the word frack comes from 'fracture', meaning 'to break'. So frack the land now means 'to extract natural gas'.