caterpillar
part of speech
noun (a caterpillar, caterpillars)
meaning for a pupil
1) A caterpillar is the long, soft, worm-like larva of a butterfly or moth, with many legs. tree →
2) A Caterpillar track is a moving metal belt around the wheels of a tractor or tank (often written caterpillar track). tree →
sense in the lessons
In science, the caterpillar is the second stage of a butterfly's life cycle: egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly. Caterpillars eat leaves and grow quickly, shedding their skin several times. Some caterpillars have hairs that sting or cause itchy rashes, so look but do not touch. Phrases: The Very Hungry Caterpillar, caterpillar to butterfly, hairy caterpillar.
examples
- The caterpillar munched a cabbage leaf. tree →
- A caterpillar turns into a butterfly. tree →
- Caterpillars hatch from tiny eggs. tree →
- Some hairy caterpillars can make your skin itchy. tree →
- The caterpillar made a chrysalis. tree →
- We read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". tree →
- "I writhed myself free," said the Caterpillar. tree →
note
Spelling: cat-er-pil-lar, double l. A caterpillar is not a worm: it has legs and becomes a butterfly or moth. Caterpillars have six true legs at the front, like all insects, plus extra stumpy "prolegs".
In the corpora
- Monarchs taste bad to birds because their caterpillars eat poisonous milkweed.
- Some caterpillars have hairs or spines that sting or cause rashes, so not every animal that hurts is venomous.
- A caterpillar turns into a butterfly inside a chrysalis, where its body breaks down and is rebuilt.
- Only the caterpillars of a few kinds of moth eat wool clothes; most moths never touch clothes at all.
- A moth's caterpillar often makes a silk cocoon before it changes, but a butterfly's caterpillar makes a bare chrysalis.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «caterpillar» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.