As used in the sentence below, “impressed” most nearly means

"Her handwriting, these loopy purple marks impressed onto the page, retained her moods and anxieties, and the moment Ruth laid eyes on the page, she knew without a doubt that the girl’s fingertips were moist and soft, and that she had bitten her nails down to the quick."

As used in the sentence below, the word "finest" most nearly means

"The notion that extraverts-people who are very outgoing and talkative-are the finest salespeople is so obvious that we've overlooked one teensy flaw."

As used in the sentence below, "moving" most nearly means

"Does this mean that introverts-those soft-spoken souls more at home in a study carrel than at a party-are better at moving others? 

As used in the sentence below, "check" most nearly means

"Astronomers have understood this overall scenario for decades, but the details are fuzzy because telescopes haven't been good enough to check theorists' computer models."

As used in the sentence below, "stage" most nearly means

"As is typical at such an early stage, the star is encircled by an envelope and 30 disk of gas and dust."

As used in the sentence below, "clear" most nearly means

"It is clear that, if we are going to live, or have any private comforts, there must be dinners cooked, children's faces must be washed, and there must be a home..."

As used in the sentence below, the phrase “backed up” most nearly means

"So far, the researchers only have that one spectacular display, backed up by a scattering of historical data that seems to support the pattern."

As used in the sentence below, “drawn to” most nearly means

"What does this all mean for the music business? To start, note that CDs and concerts are complements. The cheaper one of them becomes (and therefore the more it’s consumed), the greater the demand for the other. For many years concerts were the cheap complement that boosted CD sales. But as the price of recorded music fell, more fans could afford it—and were then drawn to live concerts.

As used below, "dramatic" most nearly means

"Concerts aren’t the only complement to recorded music. There are many others.  As the price of music declines, which are the music-related products, services, or accessories that might benefit from this price decline?  Music complements, it turns out, are many and varied. To start, there were CD burners, blank CDs, and CD players; MP3 players became a leading complement in subsequent years. And then there’s broadband access: As demand for file sharing increased (and with it, the loss in content sales for recording studios) so did demand for high-speed Internet (and with it, a dramatic increase in revenues for Internet service providers and cable operators).

As used in the sentence below, "sheathed" most nearly means

"Now, Jiang and his colleagues have taken a closer look at the Jehol fossils—literally. Researchers have long noted that the remains of soft tissues were often sheathed in a thin, dark carbon-rich layer. But the team found that under the microscope, cells in the tissues of fossils from several sites had been blown open, and they had a charcoal-like appearance."

As used below, "charged with" most nearly means:

"It is not easy for the same small group of men to decide whether to buy a new station for millions of dollars, build a new building, alter the rate card, buy a new Western, sell a soap opera, decide what defensive line to take in connection with the latest Congressional inquiry, how much money to spend on promoting a new program, what additions or deletions should be made in the existing covey or clutch of vice-presidents, and at the same time—frequently on the same long day—to give mature, thoughtful consideration to the manifold problems that confront those who are charged with the responsibility for news and public affairs."

As it is used below, "dictated" most nearly means

    "Not so long ago the President of the United States delivered a television address to the nation. He was discoursing on the possibility or probability of war between this nation and the Soviet Union and Communist China—a reasonably compelling subject. Two networks, CBS and NBC, delayed that broadcast for an hour and fifteen minutes. If this decision was dictated by anything other than financial reasons, the networks didn’t deign to explain those reasons."

As used below, “unmoved” most nearly means

"And October had told her about her cadet year at Stowe, her room at the Jacksons’ place, mentioned Chillicothe, Ohio, where she had grown up, and— because Mrs. Pemberton had seemed unmoved and uninterested so far—spoken of her two aunts who had raised her and her sister Vergie with good home training. "

As used below, “recognized” most nearly means

"Food amount and distribution has long been thought to affect mating systems. It continues to generate much interest, and the effects of food distribution on the mating system as such can probably be seen most clearly within a single species where monogamy (having only one mate), polygyny (males mating with more than one female), and polyandry (females mating with more than one male) are all involved in response to changing food supply. One recent study on this topic was conducted within sight of my home in Vermont (on Mount Mansfield) on an enigmatic, little-known bird, the Bicknell’s thrush. It was not officially recognized as a new species until 1995."

As used below, “unraveled” most nearly means

     " The main part of this story was unraveled in a tour de force of work (and fun?) by James E. Goetz from the State University of New York and Kent P. McFarland and Christopher C. Rimmer from the Vermont Institute of Natural Science, with the aid of a small army of twenty eager and able assistants who helped in finding and monitoring nests and catching and marking adult birds with individually identified color-coded rings. "