bible
part of speech
noun (the Bible, bibles)
meaning for a pupil
1) (the Bible, capital B) The holy book of Christians; the Christian Bible contains the Old Testament and the New Testament, and the Hebrew Bible is the holy book of Jews. tree →
2) (a bible) A copy of this book. tree →
3) (informal) The most useful and trusted book on a subject: this cookbook is my bible. tree →
sense in the lessons
In RE (religious education) lessons pupils learn stories from the Bible and about how Christians and Jews use it. In everyday talk "the bible of football" means the most trusted guide. Phrases: Bible story, family Bible, swear on the Bible, my bible (informal).
examples
- Christians read the Bible in church. tree →
- The story of Noah's Ark comes from the Bible. tree →
- My grandparents have a big old family Bible. tree →
- (informal) This guidebook is the hikers' bible. tree →
- In court, some people swear on the Bible to tell the truth. tree →
- We read a Bible story in RE. tree →
- Her chief inheritance had been an old Bible, which she read and valued. tree →
note
Write "the Bible" with a capital B for the holy book; small b for the informal meaning. Adjective: biblical. Different religions have different holy books, such as the Qur'an and the Torah.
In the corpora
- The Queen of Sheba visits him in the Bible; Arabic tradition calls her Bilqis, Kipling's Balkis.
- "The good book" means the Bible.
- The Bible's story of the Tower of Babel was probably inspired by a real ziggurat in Babylon.
- Reformers translated the Bible from Latin into German, English and other languages so ordinary people could read it themselves.
- Adam and Eve are the first man and woman in the Bible, made by God and placed in the Garden of Eden.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «bible» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.