barrier

«barrier» in Mova's school dictionary: a fence, gate, wall or bar that stops people or things… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a barrier, barriers)

meaning for a pupil

1) A barrier is a fence, gate, wall or bar that stops people or things from going somewhere. tree →

2) A barrier can also be anything that makes something hard to do, like a language barrier. tree →

sense in the lessons

In safety lessons, barriers at railway crossings, building sites, cliff edges, pools and roadworks are there to keep you safe; never climb over or go under them. A barrier going down at a level crossing means a train is coming. In science, a barrier stops things passing, like a sunscreen being a barrier to UV, or a coral reef (the Great Barrier Reef) protecting the coast. In inclusion lessons, removing barriers helps everyone join in. Phrases: safety barrier, crash barrier, language barrier, break down barriers, sound barrier.

examples

• Never climb over the safety barrier at the cliff. tree →
• The barrier came down because a train was coming. tree →
• Police put up barriers to keep the crowd back. tree →
• Not speaking English was a barrier for the new boy at first. tree →
• The Great Barrier Reef is off the coast of Australia. tree →
• A fence is a barrier around the swimming pool. tree →
• Ramps remove barriers for wheelchair users. tree →
• Skin is a barrier that keeps germs out. tree →
• Furiously did the enraged gnome fling two great clouds together, and hurl a thunderbolt after the flying maiden, splintering the rocky barriers which had stood a thousand years. tree →

note

Countable: a barrier, barriers. Spelled with double r: bar-ri-er. A barrier is there for a reason; going around it puts you and others in danger.

In the corpora

• On a motorway, after a breakdown everyone gets out and waits behind the barrier, away from the traffic.
• The Great Barrier Reef off Australia is about 2,300 km long and is the largest structure built by living things.
• The Great Barrier Reef off Australia is the largest coral reef system on Earth, made of thousands of separate reefs.
• Zoo animals are wild animals and can be dangerous, so visitors stay behind barriers and never climb fences.
• Zoo barriers keep people far enough away that an animal cannot reach them; climbing over one has led to serious injuries.

Trees and pragmatics

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