decimal

«decimal» in Mova's school dictionary: a number written with a decimal point, such as 3.5 or… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

adjective (decimal); noun (a decimal, decimals)

meaning for a pupil

1) (noun, maths) A decimal (or decimal number) is a number written with a decimal point, such as 3.5 or 0.25, to show parts smaller than one. tree →

2) (adjective) Decimal system: counting in tens, using the ten digits 0 to 9, where each place is worth ten times the place to its right. tree →

3) (adjective) Decimal money: money in which 100 small coins make one big unit, like 100 pence = £1 or 100 cents = $1. tree →

4) Decimal place: one digit after the decimal point. tree →

sense in the lessons

In maths lessons, pupils learn tenths, hundredths and thousandths, place value columns, rounding to one or two decimal places, adding and multiplying decimals, and converting between fractions, decimals and percentages (½ = 0.5 = 50%). In everyday life decimals appear in prices (£2.99), measurements (1.5 metres), sports times (9.58 seconds) and temperatures. In history, Britain and Ireland switched to decimal money on «Decimal Day», 15 February 1971; Australia did in 1966 and New Zealand in 1967. Phrases: «decimal point», «decimal place», «to two decimal places», «recurring decimal», «decimal fraction».

examples

• 0.5 is the decimal for one half. tree →
• Round 3.476 to two decimal places: it's 3.48. tree →
• Put the decimal point in the right place! tree →
• Our money is decimal: 100 pence make one pound. tree →
• The sprinter ran 100 metres in 9.58 seconds, a decimal number. tree →
• One third as a decimal is 0.333…, a recurring decimal. tree →
• We counted in tens because the decimal system uses ten digits. tree →
• Gran remembers when Britain went decimal in 1971. tree →
• He tried it by decimals and by compound interest. tree →

note

In the UK, USA, Australia and similar countries the decimal point is a dot (3.5); in many European countries it is a comma (3,5). Trap: more digits does not mean bigger: 0.5 is bigger than 0.45, because 5 tenths is more than 4 tenths. Say «three point one four», not «three point fourteen». Multiplying by 10 moves the digits one place to the left: 0.35 × 10 = 3.5.

In the corpora

• The famous story that spinach's iron was overrated because of a misplaced decimal point is itself disputed and partly a myth.

Trees and pragmatics

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