dense
part of speech
adjective (dense, denser, densest)
meaning for a pupil
1) Thick, with things packed closely together: "a dense forest", "dense fog". tree →
2) In science, having a lot of mass packed into a small space; dense things feel heavy for their size. tree →
3) Informal and unkind: slow to understand. tree →
sense in the lessons
In science, density explains floating and sinking: objects denser than water sink, and objects less dense than water float. Iron is denser than wood. In geography, a dense population means many people living close together. In safety, dense fog makes it hard to see on roads. Phrases: dense fog, dense forest, dense crowd, denser than water.
examples
- We got lost in the dense forest. tree →
- Drive slowly in dense fog. tree →
- A stone sinks because it is denser than water. tree →
- Oil floats on water because it is less dense. tree →
- The crowd was so dense we couldn't move. tree →
- Cities are densely populated. tree →
- Well, they walked and walked till they reached a dark, dense forest. tree →
note
Comparatives: denser, densest. The noun is "density". Trap: big does not mean dense; a big beach ball floats, but a small stone sinks. Calling someone "dense" is unkind.
In the corpora
- The African forest buffalo is a smaller, reddish cousin of the savanna buffalo, with swept-back horns that fit dense forest.
- Oil and water do not mix; they form two layers with oil on top, because oil is less dense than water.
- In a lava lamp, wax heated at the bottom expands, becomes less dense and rises, then cools and sinks.
- Water is denser than oil, so it sinks under burning oil.
- Hot smoke is less dense than cool air, so it rises and fills a room from the ceiling down.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «dense» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.