deliberate
part of speech
adjective (deliberate); verb (deliberate, deliberates, deliberated, deliberating)
meaning for a pupil
1) Something deliberate is done on purpose, not by accident. tree →
2) Deliberate movements or speech are slow and careful. tree →
3) (formal, verb) To deliberate is to think about something carefully or talk about it for a long time before deciding. tree →
sense in the lessons
In stories and in playground fights it tells whether someone meant to do something: "It was deliberate!" In sport, a deliberate foul is punished more. In formal texts a jury or committee deliberates. Phrases: a deliberate act, deliberate mistake, deliberate over/about.
examples
- That trip was deliberate, not an accident! tree →
- He made a deliberate mistake to see if we were listening. tree →
- She walked with slow, deliberate steps across the ice. tree →
- The judges deliberated for an hour before choosing the winner. tree →
- Breaking the window was not deliberate; the ball slipped. tree →
- The referee gave a red card for a deliberate handball. tree →
- The council deliberated about the new park. tree →
- Write each number in slow, deliberate strokes. tree →
- The trusty servant deliberated for a long while how to set about this business, for it was very difficult to get into the presence of the King's daughter. tree →
note
Two pronunciations: adjective ends "-rit" (de-LIB-er-it); verb ends "-rate" (de-LIB-er-ate). Adverb: deliberately = on purpose. Opposite: accidental. "Deliberate" as a verb is formal.
In the corpora
- In the UK a strike is legal after a vote, and the disruption is deliberate so that people notice.
- Deliberate practice means working on purpose on the parts you cannot do yet, slowly and carefully.
- "Strategic misrepresentation" means deliberate lying to win approval, for example hiding a project's real cost.
- "Cost an arm and a leg" means cost a lot of money; it is a deliberate exaggeration, called hyperbole.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «deliberate» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.