away
part of speech
adverb; adjective (an away game)
meaning for a pupil
1) Away means off to another place, not here any more: the bird flew away. tree →
2) Away means at a distance: the beach is 2 km away. tree →
3) Away means not at home: she is away on holiday. tree →
4) Away can mean on and on: he worked away all day. tree →
5) Away means in the future: the party is two weeks away. tree →
6) (rough) «Go away!», «Get away from me!» tell someone to leave rudely; (UK, Ireland) «Away with you!» or «Get away!» can also mean «I don't believe you». tree →
7) (euphemism) «Passed away» means died, and «put away» can mean sent to prison or (for a pet) put to sleep. tree →
8) (formal) The exam voice says «removed», «withdrawn», «deducted», «situated at a distance of». tree →
9) Give away means to hand something over for free, or to reveal a secret by accident. tree →
sense in the lessons
in «take away», «give away», «go away», «fly away», «run away»: things leave a group and the count goes down; «take away» is another name for subtract; distance «5 km away»; time «3 days away»; in sport an «away game»; in everyday life «put away your toys», «right away» (at once), «throw away», «a takeaway» (UK, Australia, NZ: food to take home); in rough talk «go away», «get away»; as a euphemism «passed away»; in the exam voice «removed», «deducted», «withdrawn»
examples
- When some of a group goes away, we subtract. tree →
- Take 16 away from 17. How many remain? tree →
- Zoe gives away 4 of her 10 toys. tree →
- 3 of the 9 birds fly away. tree →
- Please put your books away. tree →
- The school is two blocks away from my house. tree →
- Come here right away! tree →
- Never run away from a grown-up in a crowd. tree →
- Christmas is only 5 sleeps away! tree →
- Go away, I'm busy counting! tree →
- Our old dog passed away last year. tree →
- Subsequently, 4 of the 10 articles were removed from Zoe's possession; state the number remaining. tree →
- I cannot even give him away. tree →
note
«take away», «give away», «fly away» all make the group smaller: subtract; «removed», «withdrawn» and «deducted» in an exam do the same. Trap: in «take 5 away from 12» the starting number comes after «from»: 12 − 5. «right away» means at once, with no maths sense; «5 km away» is a distance, not a removal; «5 sleeps away» is 5 nights to wait. «passed away» means someone died: they are not coming back. «takeaway» is food, not subtraction.
In the corpora
- On a motorway, after a breakdown everyone gets out and waits behind the barrier, away from the traffic.
- Grown-ups call very sweet romantic film scenes "soppy", and children are allowed to look away or roll their eyes.
- Separating means parents stop living together as a couple; it may lead to a divorce, but not always straight away.
- Non-urgent appointments can be weeks away because doctors have more patients than time; urgent problems are seen sooner.
- Some illnesses in old age never go away; doctors call them chronic, and they can be controlled but not cured.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «away» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.