biceps
part of speech
noun (biceps; plural biceps)
meaning for a pupil
1) The biceps is the big muscle at the front of your upper arm that bends your elbow. tree →
2) Biceps can also name a similar muscle at the back of the thigh. tree →
sense in the lessons
In science lessons pupils learn that muscles work in pairs: the biceps contracts to bend the arm, and the triceps at the back contracts to straighten it. In PE people «show their biceps» by bending the arm. Phrases: flex your biceps, biceps and triceps.
examples
- Bend your arm and feel your biceps get hard. tree →
- The biceps pulls the forearm up. tree →
- Muscles work in pairs, like the biceps and triceps. tree →
- He showed off his big biceps. tree →
- Lifting shopping bags uses your biceps. tree →
- When the biceps relaxes, the triceps straightens the arm. tree →
note
«Biceps» is singular and plural at the same time: one biceps, two biceps. «Bicep» without «s» is common in speech but «biceps» is the correct form. «Bi» means two: the muscle has two heads at the top. Muscles only pull, never push — that is why they work in pairs.
In the corpora
- Muscles can only pull, never push, so they work in pairs: the biceps bends the elbow and the triceps straightens it.
- The biceps bends the arm and the triceps straightens it.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «biceps» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.