basement

«basement» in Mova's school dictionary: a room or floor of a building that is partly or fully… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 2 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a basement, basements)

meaning for a pupil

A basement is a room or floor of a building that is partly or fully under the ground. tree →

sense in the lessons

In everyday life, basements in North America are common and used for storage, laundry, playrooms or furnaces; they are less common in the UK and Australia, where people may say «cellar». In safety lessons, basements are a safe place during a tornado but can flood in heavy rain. In stories, especially spooky ones, the basement is dark and mysterious.

examples

• We keep our old toys in the basement. tree →
• The washing machine is in the basement. tree →
• During a tornado warning, go to the basement. tree →
• The basement flooded after the storm. tree →
• The creaky stairs led down to the dark basement. tree →
• Our basement has a games room. tree →
• The shop sells shoes in the basement. tree →
• The basement is cool in summer. tree →
• There is a room in the basement of Miss Fulsom’s school where the nurses wait. tree →

note

Countable. A basement is usually lived in or used as rooms; a «cellar» is often for storage, like wine or coal. In lifts or elevators, «B» or «LG» means basement or lower ground. Floodwater in a basement can be dangerous because of electricity.

In the corpora

• The safest place in a tornado is a basement or storm shelter, or an inside room on the lowest floor with no windows.
• In a tornado the safest place is a small inside room or a basement on the lowest floor, away from windows.

Trees and pragmatics

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