distribute

«distribute» in Mova's school dictionary: To give or share things out among a number of people: The… — 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

verb (distribute, distributes, distributed, distributing)

meaning for a pupil

1) To give or share things out among a number of people: The teacher distributed the books. tree →

2) To spread something over an area: Distribute the seeds evenly. tree →

3) To deliver goods to shops: The company distributes food to supermarkets. tree →

4) (maths) To share a total into groups or parts. tree →

sense in the lessons

In maths problems «distribute equally» means divide a total into equal shares; in everyday life charities distribute food and teachers distribute worksheets. In algebra the distributive law: 3 × (4 + 5) = 3 × 4 + 3 × 5. Phrases: «distribute equally», «distribute among», «distribute to».

examples

• The teacher distributed 30 pencils equally among 6 tables, so each table got 5. tree →
• Volunteers distributed food to families. tree →
• Distribute the icing evenly over the cake. tree →
• The company distributes milk to shops in the town. tree →
• Please distribute these leaflets to every house. tree →
• The prize money was distributed among the winners. tree →
• Seeds are distributed by wind and birds. tree →
• Well, they dug up both the pots, and began to distribute the money among the poor. tree →

note

Regular verb. Noun: distribution; adjective: distributive. In maths, «distributed equally among n» means divide by n; «distributed» alone does not always mean equal shares — check the question. Stress: dis-TRIB-ute.

In the corpora

• These are the inheritances which Moses distributed in the plains of Moab, beyond the Jordan at Jericho, eastward.

Trees and pragmatics

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