closer

«closer» in Mova's school dictionary: Nearer in distance: «Come closer» — 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 (comparative of close: close, closer, closest); adverb (closer); noun (a closer — someone or something that closes, rare)

meaning for a pupil

1) Nearer in distance: «Come closer». tree →

2) Nearer in time: «Closer to bedtime». tree →

3) More friendly or connected: «They became closer friends». tree →

4) More careful or exact: «Take a closer look». tree →

5) Nearer to a number or answer: «Your guess was closer». tree →

sense in the lessons

In maths: estimating — whose answer is closer to the real number; rounding to the closer ten; which number is closer to 50. In science: looking closer with a magnifying glass. In safety: don't go closer to a wild animal, a cliff edge or a fire; stand back. Phrases: come closer, closer to, closer look, get closer, closer and closer, closer than.

examples

• Come closer so you can hear. tree →
• Take a closer look with the magnifying glass. tree →
• Is 47 closer to 40 or to 50? It's closer to 50. tree →
• Don't go any closer to the edge. tree →
• My guess of 20 was closer than yours. tree →
• The storm is getting closer. tree →
• My cousin and I became closer after the holiday. tree →
• The stars look closer than they are. tree →
• The others came closer to him. tree →

note

Here «close» is said with a soft s: «klohss» (near), so «closer» is «KLOH-ser». The verb «close» (shut) has a z sound. In maths: «closer to 50» means the difference from 50 is smaller (50 − 47 = 3, but 47 − 40 = 7).

In the corpora

• Digital zoom just enlarges pixels and loses detail; getting closer or using a real zoom lens gives sharper pictures.
• Photographing children and animals from their eye level makes the picture feel closer and more natural.
• Crocodiles survived the asteroid too, and they are closer relatives of birds than of lizards.
• The Badger is closer to life: real badgers dig huge old homes called setts and stay underground through cold spells.
• Repeating «closer… closer… closer» slows time down and builds suspense as the danger comes nearer.

Trees and pragmatics

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