dropping

«dropping» in Mova's school dictionary: letting something fall, or falling — 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

verb (present participle of drop: drop, drops, dropped, dropping); noun (droppings — usually plural)

meaning for a pupil

1) Dropping means letting something fall, or falling. tree →

2) Dropping means becoming lower or less, like dropping temperatures. tree →

3) Droppings are the poo of animals and birds. tree →

4) Dropping someone off means taking them somewhere in a car and leaving them there. tree →

5) To drop a curtsey means to bend the knees and lower the body as a polite greeting. tree →

sense in the lessons

In everyday life «dropping off» is about getting to school; in science temperatures and prices drop. In safety and hygiene lessons, animal droppings carry germs, so you don't touch them and wash your hands. Phrases: «dropping off», «dropping out», «bird droppings», «dropping like flies».

examples

• Stop dropping crumbs on the floor! tree →
• The temperature is dropping fast tonight. tree →
• Dad is dropping me off at school. tree →
• There were bird droppings on the car. tree →
• Mouse droppings show there are mice in the house. tree →
• He kept dropping the ball. tree →
• I was dropping off to sleep when the phone rang. tree →
• ‘If you please, sire,’ said the Princess, dropping a curtsey. tree →

note

Double p: drop – dropped – dropping. «Droppings» is almost always plural. «Dropping off to sleep» = falling asleep. «Dropping out» = leaving school or a course. Never touch animal droppings with bare hands.

In the corpora

• Cassowaries swallow fruit whole and spread the seeds of over 200 kinds of plants in their droppings.
• In some caves dwarf crocodiles have turned orange, possibly from living among bat droppings.
• Some giant pitcher plants in Borneo are used as toilets by tree shrews, and the plant feeds on their droppings.
• Imagine growing a pair of bony branches on your head every summer, fighting with them in autumn and dropping them in winter.
• Reptiles are full of such tricks, from dropping tails to sticky toes that walk up glass.

Trees and pragmatics

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