demo

«demo» in Mova's school dictionary: A demonstration: showing how something works or is done — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 3 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a demo, demos); verb (informal: demo, demos, demoed, demoing); short for demonstration

meaning for a pupil

1) (informal) A demonstration: showing how something works or is done. tree →

2) (informal) A public march or meeting where people show they support or are against something; a protest. tree →

3) A short, early or free version of a song, game or program to show what it is like: «a game demo», «a demo tape». tree →

4) (informal verb) To show how something works: «Can you demo the app?» tree →

sense in the lessons

In class the teacher may «do a quick demo» of an experiment. In the news, people «go on a demo» to protest. In games and music, a demo is a sample version. It is a clipped, casual form of «demonstration». Phrases: «give a demo», «do a demo», «go on a demo», «demo version».

examples

• The teacher gave us a demo of how to use the microscope. tree →
• Thousands of people went on a demo about climate change. tree →
• I played the demo of the game before buying it. tree →
• The band recorded a demo in their garage. tree →
• Can you demo the new robot for the class? tree →
• The cooking demo showed us how to make pancakes. tree →

note

Short for «demonstration»; informal. Plural «demos». Do not confuse with «demon». In formal writing use «demonstration».

In the corpora

• A demo is a rough first recording made to show the idea of a song; it does not need to sound perfect.
• Ollie tried a shortcut: he secretly downloaded the free demo of an older game on the family console.
• Not for playing a demo, his mum said, but for sneaking.

Trees and pragmatics

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