dwarf

«dwarf» in Mova's school dictionary: a small, strong, often bearded creature who lives in… — 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 (a dwarf, dwarfs or dwarves); adjective (dwarf = much smaller than usual); verb (dwarf, dwarfs, dwarfed, dwarfing)

meaning for a pupil

1) In fairy tales and fantasy, a dwarf is a small, strong, often bearded creature who lives in mountains and mines. tree →

2) As an adjective, dwarf means a much smaller kind of something: a dwarf tree, a dwarf planet. tree →

3) To dwarf something means to make it look very small by being much bigger. tree →

4) Dwarfism is a medical condition in which a person grows to a short height. tree →

sense in the lessons

In stories, dwarfs appear in «Snow White» and fantasy books, digging for gold. In science lessons Pluto is a dwarf planet, and a white dwarf is a small, dying star; gardeners grow dwarf apple trees. In everyday writing, «the skyscraper dwarfed the houses» means it made them look tiny. Phrases: «dwarf planet», «white dwarf», «red dwarf», «dwarfed by».

examples

• Snow White lived with seven dwarfs. tree →
• Pluto is now called a dwarf planet. tree →
• A white dwarf is the hot core left after a star dies. tree →
• We planted a dwarf apple tree in a pot. tree →
• The giant ship dwarfed the little boats. tree →
• In the story the dwarves mined for gold. tree →
• Dwarf rabbits are very small pets. tree →
• The mountains dwarfed our tent. tree →

note

Plural: «dwarfs» (standard, science) or «dwarves» (fantasy books). Respect: for real people with dwarfism, many prefer «a person of short stature» or «a little person»; using «dwarf» as a joke is hurtful. A dwarf planet orbits the Sun but has not cleared its path of other objects.

In the corpora

• In Kenya, hornbills and dwarf mongooses team up: the birds catch insects the mongooses disturb and call out warnings of hawks.
• In some caves dwarf crocodiles have turned orange, possibly from living among bat droppings.
• The Jaragua dwarf gecko of the Caribbean is one of the smallest reptiles, small enough to curl up on a coin.
• In 2006 astronomers reclassified Pluto as a dwarf planet after finding other similar objects, and some scientists still argue about it.
• Pluto was called a planet until 2006, when astronomers made it a dwarf planet, so books printed before then list nine planets.

Trees and pragmatics

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