cathedral

«cathedral» in Mova's school dictionary: a very large and important Christian church, the main… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 4 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a cathedral, cathedrals)

meaning for a pupil

A cathedral is a very large and important Christian church, the main church of an area led by a bishop. tree →

sense in the lessons

In history and religious education lessons pupils learn that cathedrals took many years to build, with tall towers, spires and stained-glass windows. In geography a city often grows around its cathedral. Famous ones: St Paul's, Canterbury, Notre-Dame, St Patrick's. In maths, their windows and arches are used to explore symmetry.

examples

• We visited the cathedral on our school trip. tree →
• The cathedral has a tall stone spire. tree →
• Light came through the cathedral's stained-glass windows. tree →
• The bishop led a service in the cathedral. tree →
• It took workers many years to build the cathedral. tree →
• The cathedral bells rang across the city. tree →
• He passed by the cathedral tower, where the white marble angels were sculptured. tree →

note

Not every big church is a cathedral; it must be the seat of a bishop. In the UK a town with a cathedral was traditionally called a city. Spelling: cath-e-dral.

In the corpora

• Cathedrals were huge and built by hand, and money came in slowly, so many took a hundred years or more to finish.
• Lincoln Cathedral in England was probably the tallest building in the world for about 200 years, until its spire fell in 1548.
• Many countries are young: Giulia's nonna, Italian for grandma, jokes that Italy is younger than her favourite cathedral.
• Galileo noticed this watching a swinging lamp in a cathedral, timing it with his pulse.

Trees and pragmatics

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