crabs

«crabs» in Mova's school dictionary: Sea or shore animals with a hard shell, ten legs and two… — 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

noun, plural of «crab» (a crab, crabs); verb «crab» (rare)

meaning for a pupil

1) Sea or shore animals with a hard shell, ten legs and two big claws that walk sideways. tree →

2) The meat of these animals, eaten as food. tree →

sense in the lessons

In science, crabs are crustaceans (like lobsters and shrimps): invertebrates with an outer skeleton (exoskeleton) that they shed as they grow. At the beach, children look for crabs in rock pools — safety: pick them up gently from behind, mind the claws, and put them back where you found them. Phrases: «rock pool crabs», «hermit crabs», «walk like a crab», «crab legs».

examples

• We found three little crabs in the rock pool. tree →
• Crabs walk sideways across the sand. tree →
• Hold crabs from behind so they can't pinch you. tree →
• Hermit crabs live in empty shells. tree →
• Crabs shed their hard shells when they grow. tree →
• Put the crabs back in the water before you go home. tree →
• Dad ordered crab cakes at the seaside restaurant. tree →
• Crabs are crustaceans, not insects. tree →
• There grew water-plants, some quite fresh, and others looking sickly, which had water-snakes twining round them, and black crabs clinging to their stems. tree →

note

Countable: one crab, two crabs; the food is uncountable: «some crab». «Crabby» or «crabbed» means grumpy. Crabs are not fish and not insects; they have ten legs, insects have six. In maths problems, a crab has 10 legs (8 walking legs and 2 claws).

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.
• First, we found crabs in rock pools.
• Crabs and other rock-pool creatures pinch to defend themselves; look and let them be.

Trees and pragmatics

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