animal
part of speech
noun (animal, animals); adjective
meaning for a pupil
1) An animal is a living thing that can move and eat, like a dog, a bird or a fish. tree →
2) In everyday talk, animal often means a mammal or a beast, not a person or an insect. tree →
3) Animal as an adjective means about animals: «animal tracks». tree →
sense in the lessons
a general word for the creatures counted in a zoo, farm or pet shop; it can group cows, pigs and hens together; in science, animals are sorted into groups like mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians and insects; phrases: «farm animals», «wild animals», «pet animals», «animal kingdom»
examples
- The zoo has 45 animals. tree →
- There are 6 cows and 4 pigs; how many animals are there? tree →
- Each animal eats 3 pounds of food. tree →
- The farmer sold 12 of his animals. tree →
- A whale is an animal, not a fish. tree →
- Wild animals live in forests and jungles. tree →
- Be gentle with animals and never pull their tails. tree →
- Do not feed wild animals at the park. tree →
note
Countable: an animal, animals. A thing counted, and a group name: «how many animals» often means add all the kinds. Trap: count legs only if the question asks for legs. Myth: bats are not birds, and whales are not fish; both are mammals.
In the corpora
- A charity is an organisation that helps people, animals or the environment, paid for by money the public gives.
- Some fundraising scams use AI-made videos of animals or people that do not exist to get money from kind viewers.
- Robot pets already exist, but they are not living animals and do not need or feel care the way real pets do.
- Maria Prymachenko was a Ukrainian folk artist from the village of Bolotnia who painted bright, imaginary animals.
- Photographing children and animals from their eye level makes the picture feel closer and more natural.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «animal» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.