crumb
part of speech
noun (a crumb, crumbs); interjection (crumbs! — British, mild surprise)
meaning for a pupil
1) A very small piece of bread, cake or biscuit. tree →
2) A very small amount of something: "a crumb of hope". tree →
3) "Crumbs!" is an old-fashioned British way of showing surprise. tree →
sense in the lessons
In everyday life, crumbs fall on the table and floor when we eat; we wipe them up so they do not attract ants and mice. In cooking, breadcrumbs coat food like fish fingers. In stories, Hansel and Gretel dropped a trail of crumbs. Phrases: crumbs on the table, breadcrumbs, a trail of crumbs, a crumb of comfort.
examples
- Please sweep up the crumbs after lunch. tree →
- Birds pecked at the crumbs on the path. tree →
- Hansel dropped crumbs to find the way home. tree →
- There's not a crumb left of the cake! tree →
- Crumbs attract ants into the kitchen. tree →
- The fish was coated in breadcrumbs. tree →
- Crumbs! I forgot my homework. tree →
- Then he wiped the crumbs from his beard and began: tree →
note
Countable: a crumb, crumbs. The "b" is silent: said "krum". The verb "crumble" means break into crumbs; "crumbly" means breaks easily. Manners: brush crumbs into your hand or a napkin, not onto the floor.
In the corpora
- A mouse wants crumbs, a cockroach wants dark damp corners, and a clothes moth's caterpillar wants your wool jumper.
- Then the Mole despairs again: there's nothing to eat, not a crumb!
- Clues in a text, like crumbs on a jumper, can show that a character is not telling the truth.
- Ants come into kitchens for food, so you clean up crumbs and sticky spills.
- Old crumbs in a toaster can catch fire, so a grown-up empties the crumb tray when it is unplugged and cold.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «crumb» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.