ballot

«ballot» in Mova's school dictionary: A way of voting secretly by writing on a paper or using a… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 3 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a ballot, ballots); verb (ballot, ballots, balloted, balloting)

meaning for a pupil

1) A way of voting secretly by writing on a paper or using a machine. tree →

2) The paper you vote on (a ballot paper). tree →

3) A vote held in this way. tree →

4) (UK, Australia) A random draw to decide who gets something, like tickets or places. tree →

5) (verb) To ask people to vote. tree →

sense in the lessons

In citizenship lessons and school council elections, pupils vote by ballot. In maths, ballot results are counted, compared and shown in charts or as fractions. In the UK and Australia, popular tickets or school places can be decided by ballot (random draw). Phrases: secret ballot, ballot box, ballot paper, cast a ballot.

examples

• We voted for class captain by secret ballot. tree →
• Put your ballot paper in the ballot box. tree →
• Out of 30 ballots, 18 were for Mia. tree →
• The tickets for the final were sold by ballot. tree →
• The union balloted its members. tree →
• Each ballot must be counted carefully. tree →

note

Double l, single t: ballot, balloted. In maths, the fraction of votes = votes for a person ÷ all ballots. Do not confuse with ballet (dance).

In the corpora

• Voting is secret: a secret ballot means nobody sees your choice, so nobody can bully or pay you to vote their way.
• When people can see how you vote they may vote to please friends, which is why real elections use a secret ballot.
• In a secret ballot nobody can see how a person voted.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «ballot» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.