democracy

«democracy» in Mova's school dictionary: a way of running a country in which the people choose… — 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 (democracy, democracies)

meaning for a pupil

1) Democracy is a way of running a country in which the people choose their leaders by voting. tree →

2) A democracy is a country run in this way. tree →

3) Democracy can mean fair decisions where everyone has an equal say, as in a class vote. tree →

sense in the lessons

In citizenship and history lessons it is compared with kings and dictators; free elections, free speech and fair laws are parts of democracy. In class, voting for a class leader is a small democracy. Phrases: «live in a democracy», «a free democracy», «parliamentary democracy».

examples

• In a democracy, people vote for their leaders. tree →
• The United States, Canada and Australia are democracies. tree →
• Ancient Athens had an early form of democracy. tree →
• Our class used democracy to choose the trip — we voted. tree →
• Free speech is important in a democracy. tree →
• 18 of 30 pupils voted for the zoo; is that more than half? tree →

note

Plural: democracies. Adjective: democratic. The word comes from Greek: demos = people, kratos = power. Maths in votes: a majority means more than half.

In the corpora

• In a democracy the grown-ups choose who runs the country and the town.
• They called it democracy, rule by the people, though women, slaves and foreigners could not vote.
• And rights can be lost: Germany's democracy was ended in 1933 when Hitler's party took power.
• Rights can be lost: Germany was a democracy after 1919, but Hitler's party took power in 1933 and ended it.
• At many Australian polling places, schools and clubs sell sausages in bread to raise money; people call it the democracy sausage.

Trees and pragmatics

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