inhabit
part of speech
verb (inhabit, inhabits, inhabited, inhabiting)
meaning for a pupil
1) To inhabit a place means to live in it: «polar bears inhabit the Arctic». tree →
2) (formal) To inhabit can also mean to be present in something: «strange creatures inhabit her stories». tree →
sense in the lessons
In the Tanakh and Jewish tradition: To dwell in a land. God says the land is where He dwells among Israel. Interpretation: Tradition reads this as meaning the land must be kept pure because God's presence is there. In the primary lessons: In science and geography lessons «inhabit» is used for where living things and people live: «Which animals inhabit the rainforest?». Related words are «inhabitant» (a person or animal that lives somewhere), «habitat» (the natural home of a living thing) and «uninhabited» (with nobody living there: «an uninhabited island»). In maths and geography, «the town has ten thousand inhabitants» gives its population.
examples
- And thou shalt not defile the land which ye inhabit, in the midst of which I dwell; for I the LORD dwell in the midst of the children of Israel.' (Torah NUM.35.34, JPS 1917) tree →
- The righteous shall never be moved; but the wicked shall not inhabit the land. (Writings PRO.10.30, JPS 1917) tree →
- Thou didst crush the heads of leviathan, Thou gavest him to be food to the folk inhabiting the wilderness. (Writings PSA.74.14, JPS 1917) tree →
- And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. (Prophets ISA.65.21, JPS 1917) tree →
- Penguins inhabit the cold seas of the southern hemisphere. tree →
- Which animals inhabit a pond? tree →
- People have inhabited this valley for thousands of years. tree →
- The island is not inhabited. tree →
- Bats inhabit the old church tower. tree →
- The town has twenty thousand inhabitants. tree →
- Many creatures inhabit the deep ocean. tree →
- The BIRCH NYMPH is a melancholy maiden with floating hair, resembling the branches of the pale and fragile-looking tree which she inhabits. tree →
note
Past «inhabited». It takes an object directly: «inhabit the forest», not «inhabit in the forest». Trap: «inhabited» means lived in, and «uninhabited» means not lived in — but «inhabitable» and «habitable» both mean fit to live in (here «in-» does not mean «not»). Formal; in everyday talk say «live in».
In the corpora
- And Judah went with Simeon his brother, and they smote the Canaanites that inhabited Zephath, and utterly destroyed it.
- And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them.
- But Judah shall be inhabited for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation.
- Thou didst crush the heads of leviathan, Thou gavest him to be food to the folk inhabiting the wilderness.
- The righteous shall never be moved; but the wicked shall not inhabit the land.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «inhabit» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.