bent
part of speech
adjective (bent); verb form (bend, bends, bent, bending)
meaning for a pupil
1) Bent means not straight any more, curved or folded. tree →
2) Bent is the past form of bend: «He bent the wire». tree →
3) «Bent on» means very determined to do something. tree →
4) In British slang, bent can mean dishonest. tree →
sense in the lessons
In everyday life, a bent spoon, bent nail or bent bike wheel is damaged; in PE you bend your knees to land softly. In science, a pencil in a glass of water looks bent because light bends (refraction). Phrases: bent over, bent double, bent on, knees bent.
examples
- The nail was bent, so I couldn't use it. tree →
- He bent down to tie his shoe. tree →
- Land with your knees bent. tree →
- The pencil in the water looks bent. tree →
- The wheel got bent in the crash. tree →
- She is bent on winning the race. tree →
- The old man was bent over his walking stick. tree →
- I bent the paper in half. tree →
- She was very old and almost bent double. tree →
note
Bend is irregular: bend, bent, bent (not «bended», except in «on bended knee»). In science, light seems to bend as it passes from water to air, but the pencil is still straight.
In the corpora
- Metals are shiny, they ring when you strike them, and they can be bent and hammered into shape without shattering.
- A toothbrush with bent, splayed bristles does not clean well and is changed about every three months.
- A straw in water looks bent because light changes direction as it passes from water to air (refraction).
- A straw in water looks bent because light changes direction as it passes from water to air; this is called refraction.
- Leo in Vancouver sat on Grandad's glasses, bent them, and put them back in the case.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «bent» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.