between

«between» in Mova's school dictionary: in the space in the middle of two things: the ball is… — 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

preposition; adverb (in between)

meaning for a pupil

1) Between means in the space in the middle of two things: the ball is between the chairs. tree →

2) Between means shared by two or more people: share between them. tree →

3) Between can mean in the time from one thing to another: between 2 and 3 o'clock. tree →

4) In numbers, between means larger than one and smaller than the other: 5 is between 4 and 6. tree →

5) Between shows a difference or a link: the difference between cats and dogs. tree →

6) (casual) «Between you and me» means this is a secret; «in between» means in the middle, neither one nor the other. tree →

7) (formal) The exam voice says «apportioned among», «distributed amongst», «the interval bounded by», «the disparity between». tree →

sense in the lessons

sharing out to a number of people («shared between 5 children» = divide by 5); or the gap between two numbers («the difference between 18 and 11» = subtract); in maths «numbers between 10 and 20»; in everyday life «between you and me», «in between», «choose between», «between meals»; in casual and gossip talk «between us, she's moving house» (a secret); in the exam voice «apportioned equally among», «the disparity between»

examples

• 25 books are shared between 5 children equally. How many does each child get? tree →
• Mo and Lin share 14 grapes between them equally. tree →
• What is the difference between 18 and 11? tree →
• The cat sat between the two pillows. tree →
• Which number is between 7 and 9? tree →
• Do not eat between meals. tree →
• We have a break between maths and reading. tree →
• You have to choose between the red bike and the blue one. tree →
• Between you and me, Mr Lee's leaving at Christmas. tree →
• split it between the 3 of us, it's 12 chips tree →
• sod it, just split 'em between us tree →
• Twenty-five volumes are to be apportioned equally amongst five pupils; ascertain the allocation per pupil. tree →
• The truth lies between these two extremes. tree →

note

«shared between N» names the number of shares: divide; «apportioned among» in an exam is the same. Trap: «the difference between A and B» asks you to subtract, not to share; «the disparity between» is the formal word for that difference. «Numbers between 3 and 7» usually means 4, 5, 6, not 3 and 7. «between the 3 of us» counts the speaker in: 3 shares. Say «between you and me», not «between you and I». «Between you and me» in gossip is a secret, not a sharing problem.

In the corpora

• The silent treatment usually makes things worse, and children should not have to carry messages between upset grown-ups.
• Then it stays between you two, bro."
• People of all ages knit; the British Olympic diver Tom Daley was filmed knitting between events at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
• Tigers love water and swim well; Sundarbans tigers swim between islands in the mangroves of India and Bangladesh and can swim several kilometres.
• Each time you practise something, the connections between the nerve cells involved get stronger, so the memory gets easier to find.

Trees and pragmatics

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