big

«big» in Mova's school dictionary: large in size or amount: a big dog — 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

adjective (big, bigger, biggest)

meaning for a pupil

1) Big means large in size or amount: a big dog. tree →

2) Big means important or serious: a big day, a big mistake. tree →

3) Big means older: my big sister. tree →

4) Bigger means larger than another; biggest means larger than all the others. tree →

sense in the lessons

how large a difference is; the larger of two numbers («subtract the smaller from the bigger one»); in everyday life «big brother», «a big deal», «think big»; in science comparing sizes of animals and planets

examples

• Here the word «more» does not mean adding: it asks how big the difference is. tree →
• We always subtract the smaller number from the bigger one. tree →
• A big box holds 24 crayons and a small box holds 8. tree →
• An elephant is bigger than a horse. tree →
• Jupiter is the biggest planet. tree →
• Tomorrow is a big day: the school play! tree →
• My big brother helps me with homework. tree →
• Which number is bigger, 45 or 54? tree →
• "Was he as big as this?" tree →

note

In subtraction start from the bigger number and take the smaller one away. Trap: a «big box» describes size, not an operation. Spelling: double g in bigger, biggest. Opposite: small, little.

In the corpora

• Rent is often a family's biggest bill, so when it goes up, other spending has to shrink.
• Own-brand food is often made in a similar way to famous brands but costs less because there is no big advertising.
• A mortgage is a very big bank loan to buy a house, paid back monthly for 25 years or more with interest.
• Big building jobs often take longer and cost more than planned.
• A big family brings warmth and noise, and also old quarrels.

Trees and pragmatics

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