bolt

«bolt» in Mova's school dictionary: a metal bar that slides across to lock a door or window — 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

noun (a bolt, bolts); verb (bolt, bolts, bolted, bolting); adverb (bolt upright)

meaning for a pupil

1) A bolt is a metal bar that slides across to lock a door or window. tree →

2) A bolt is a thick metal pin with a screw thread that goes with a nut to hold things together. tree →

3) A bolt of lightning is a flash of it. tree →

4) To bolt is to run away suddenly, like a frightened horse. tree →

5) To bolt food is to eat it very fast. tree →

6) To bolt a door is to lock it with a bolt. tree →

7) A bolt can also be a short, heavy arrow shot from a crossbow. tree →

sense in the lessons

In design and technology nuts and bolts hold parts together. In everyday life and safety: bolt the door at night; don't bolt your food or you might choke. In science lightning comes as bolts. In stories a horse bolts in fear; someone «sits bolt upright» (very straight, suddenly). Phrases: «a bolt from the blue» (a total surprise), «make a bolt for it» (run for it).

examples

• Dad bolted the gate shut. tree →
• The horse bolted when it heard the thunder. tree →
• A bolt of lightning hit the tree. tree →
• Tighten the nut onto the bolt. tree →
• Don't bolt your dinner, chew it properly. tree →
• She sat bolt upright when the alarm went off. tree →
• The news came like a bolt from the blue. tree →
• The bolt hits whatever the eye sees.” tree →

note

Regular verb: bolted, bolting. A bolt has no point (a nut screws onto it); a screw has a point and goes into wood. Lettuce «bolts» when it grows a tall flower stalk too early.

In the corpora

• Leave a bike out in the rain all winter and its chain and bolts turn orange-brown and flaky.
• There are guards, lockers and plastic chairs bolted to the floor.
• Usain Bolt ran 100 m in 9.58 seconds in 2009, still the world record, about 10.4 metres every second.
• Thunder rumbles because sound from different parts of the long lightning bolt reaches you at different times.
• For a split second a lightning bolt is hotter than the surface of the Sun.

Trees and pragmatics

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