boulder
part of speech
noun (a boulder, boulders)
meaning for a pupil
A boulder is a very large, rounded rock, too big to pick up. tree →
sense in the lessons
In geography and science boulders are moved by glaciers, rivers and landslides; weathering and erosion slowly break them into smaller stones, pebbles and sand. In everyday life and safety: falling boulders are a danger on mountain roads (warning signs), and «bouldering» is climbing on low rocks or walls with a mat. In stories heroes roll boulders away from cave mouths.
examples
- A huge boulder blocked the path. tree →
- The glacier carried boulders down the valley. tree →
- We climbed on the boulders at the beach. tree →
- The sign warned of falling boulders. tree →
- It took ten people to push the boulder. tree →
- Over a long time, water wore the boulder smooth. tree →
- One feels quite a novice beside these venerable million-year-old boulders. tree →
note
Countable. Size order from big to small: boulder, rock, stone, pebble, gravel, sand. Not to be confused with «bolder» (more brave), which sounds the same.
In the corpora
- Glaciers dropped huge boulders, called erratics, far from the rocks they came from.
- A glacier can carry huge boulders far from where they broke off and drop them when the ice melts.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «boulder» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.