prevailing
part of speech
adjective (prevailing); verb form (prevail, prevails, prevailed, prevailing)
meaning for a pupil
1) Prevailing means most common or strongest at a certain time or place. tree →
2) (geography) The prevailing wind is the wind that blows most often from one direction in a place. tree →
3) Prevailing is also a form of prevail, meaning winning in the end. tree →
sense in the lessons
In geography and weather lessons: in the UK and Ireland the prevailing wind is from the south-west. In formal writing «the prevailing view» means what most people think. Phrases: «prevailing wind», «prevailing conditions», «prevailing opinion».
examples
- Contrary to the prevailing opinion, I believe that the Pythag- oreans regarded the Zero, 0, as the second element which was called the infinite, indeterminate duality, infinite binary, etc. (Mordell, The Origin of Letters and Numerals according to Sefer Yetzirah (1914)) tree →
- The prevailing wind here blows from the west. tree →
- Trees lean away from the prevailing wind. tree →
- Under the prevailing conditions, the race was cancelled. tree →
- The prevailing view is that homework helps. tree →
- Good sense is prevailing at last. tree →
- Sailors used the prevailing winds to cross the ocean. tree →
- The prevailing weather is wet and mild. tree →
- Kindness prevailing over anger is the moral of the story. tree →
note
Mostly used before a noun: «prevailing wind». Wind is named by where it comes FROM: a west wind blows from the west towards the east — a common trap.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «prevailing» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.