cowrie
part of speech
noun (cowrie, cowries — also spelled cowry)
meaning for a pupil
1) A cowrie is a small sea snail with a smooth, shiny, rounded shell. tree →
2) A cowrie is also the shell of this snail, which was used as money in parts of Africa, Asia and the Pacific long ago and is still used in jewellery. tree →
sense in the lessons
In history lessons, cowrie shells are a famous example of early money: people traded goods for them. In art and design they decorate necklaces, bags and clothes. On beaches in Australia and New Zealand children sometimes find cowrie shells. Common phrases: «cowrie shell», «cowrie money», «a string of cowries».
examples
- She found a tiny cowrie shell on the beach in Queensland. tree →
- Long ago, people in West Africa used cowries as money. tree →
- The necklace was made of white cowrie shells. tree →
- A cowrie shell is smooth and shiny like glass. tree →
- Our teacher showed us a cowrie to explain early money. tree →
- The cowrie snail lives in warm, shallow seas. tree →
- He swapped a bag of cowries for a goat in the trading game. tree →
note
Plural: cowries. Also spelled «cowry». Say COW-ree (rhymes with «how-ree»). It has nothing to do with cows. In history, cowrie shells were a kind of money, so you could count prices in shells.
In the corpora
- People paid in grain, silver weighed on scales and cowrie shells.
- Long ago, in parts of Africa and Asia, small shiny cowrie shells were used as money.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «cowrie» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.