crab
part of speech
noun (a crab, crabs; crab — the food); verb (crab — rare)
meaning for a pupil
1) A crab is a sea or shore animal with a hard shell, eight legs and two big claws (pincers), which often walks sideways. tree →
2) Crab is the meat of this animal eaten as food. tree →
3) Informally, a crab is a grumpy person. tree →
sense in the lessons
In nature lessons at the seashore, crabs live in rock pools and on beaches; they are crustaceans. Children go crabbing with a line and bucket. Phrases: hermit crab, crab claws, walk like a crab, crabby (grumpy).
examples
- A crab scuttled sideways across the sand. tree →
- We found a little crab in the rock pool. tree →
- Be careful, the crab's claws can pinch. tree →
- A hermit crab lives in an empty shell. tree →
- Crabs have hard shells to protect them. tree →
- Dad ordered crab at the seafood restaurant. tree →
- Put the crab back gently where you found it. tree →
- “Of course,” said the young crab. tree →
note
Countable for the animal (a crab), uncountable for the food (some crab). A crab has ten legs if you count the two claws. Adjective: crabby (grumpy). Be gentle with sea creatures and put them back where you found them.
In the corpora
- Sally Lightfoot crabs are bright red crabs that leap from rock to rock, eat algae and pick ticks off marine iguanas.
- Woodlice need damp places and hide under logs and stones; they are crustaceans, related to crabs and shrimps, not insects.
- Picture a beach where hermit crabs line up by size beside one big empty shell.
- An old Crab tells her daughter "never to lose your temper", and the daughter snaps "Hold your tongue, Ma!
- He rises up: a King Crab so big that his shell touches Sarawak on one side and Pahang on the other.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «crab» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.