stain
part of speech
noun (a stain, stains); verb (stain, stains, stained, staining)
meaning for a pupil
1) A dirty mark or spot that is hard to remove. tree →
2) (verb) To make a mark that is hard to remove. tree →
3) (noun or verb) A dye used to colour wood or to make cells easy to see under a microscope. tree →
sense in the lessons
In everyday life, juice, grass, ink and mud stain clothes; quick cold water helps. In science, teachers use stains (like iodine) to colour cells so they can be seen under a microscope, and fizzy drinks are tested for staining teeth. In stories, a «stain» on someone's name means something bad they did. Phrases: «grass stain», «stain remover», «stained glass», «stained with».
examples
- I've got a grass stain on my trousers. tree →
- Blackberries stain your fingers purple. tree →
- Wash the stain out before it dries. tree →
- We used a stain to see the cells under the microscope. tree →
- The church has beautiful stained-glass windows. tree →
- Tea can stain your teeth. tree →
- The carpet was stained with red juice. tree →
- Dad stained the wooden fence dark brown. tree →
- She flew in excitedly, her face flushed and her dress stained with mud. tree →
note
Countable. Adjective «stainless» means it does not stain or rust, as in «stainless steel». Hot water can set some stains, like blood or egg; use cold water first.
In the corpora
- Yellow turmeric turns reddish-brown with an alkali, so a curry stain can turn red when washed with soap.
- Bleach kills germs and takes out stains; it is a strong alkali and can burn skin and eyes.
- A dye is a coloured substance whose molecules stick to fibres; berry stains are dyes from the fruit.
- Fresh stains come out more easily than old ones, because the colour has had less time to hold on to the fibres.
- An old shirt or apron protects your clothes from paint, which stains.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «stain» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.