diagonal

«diagonal» in Mova's school dictionary: going in a slanting line, not straight across or straight up — 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 (diagonal); noun (a diagonal, diagonals); adverb diagonally

meaning for a pupil

1) (adjective) Diagonal means going in a slanting line, not straight across or straight up. tree →

2) (maths, noun) A diagonal is a straight line that joins two corners of a shape that are not next to each other. tree →

3) (adverb) Diagonally means in a slanting direction, from one corner towards the opposite one. tree →

sense in the lessons

A key geometry word: a square and a rectangle each have 2 diagonals, a pentagon has 5, a triangle has none. In everyday life you cut sandwiches diagonally or cross a field diagonally. In chess the bishop moves diagonally. Phrases: diagonal line, draw the diagonal, diagonally opposite.

examples

• Draw a diagonal from one corner of the square to the opposite corner. tree →
• A rectangle has two diagonals. tree →
• Mum cut my toast diagonally into triangles. tree →
• The bishop moves diagonally across the chessboard. tree →
• Our house is diagonally opposite the shop. tree →
• The diagonal stripes on his tie were red and blue. tree →
• A triangle has no diagonals. tree →

note

In maths: the two diagonals of a square are equal and cross at right angles; a diagonal cuts a square or rectangle into two equal triangles; a polygon with n sides has n × (n − 3) ÷ 2 diagonals (hexagon: 6 × 3 ÷ 2 = 9). Sides are not diagonals.

In the corpora

• Adding a diagonal strut to a square frame divides it into two triangles and makes it rigid.

Trees and pragmatics

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