elevator

«elevator» in Mova's school dictionary: a machine like a small room that carries people or things… — 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

noun (an elevator, elevators)

meaning for a pupil

1) An elevator is a machine like a small room that carries people or things up and down between floors of a building (US and Canada; called a «lift» in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand). tree →

2) A grain elevator is a tall building where farmers store grain. tree →

3) A part on a plane's tail that moves to make it go up or down. tree →

sense in the lessons

Used in everyday life in tall buildings and in maths word problems about floors and weight limits. Phrases: «take the elevator», «elevator button», «the elevator is out of order». Safety: in a fire, use the stairs, not the elevator.

examples

• We took the elevator to the tenth floor. tree →
• Press the button to call the elevator. tree →
• In a fire, never use the elevator. tree →
• The elevator can carry eight people at most. tree →
• In London we called it a lift, not an elevator. tree →
• The elevator got stuck between floors. tree →
• A grain elevator stood beside the railway. tree →

note

«An elevator» (vowel sound). US/Canada «elevator» = UK/Ireland/Australia/NZ «lift». Maths: if an elevator holds 600 kg and each person weighs about 75 kg, at most 8 people can ride. Going from floor 3 to floor 9 is 6 floors up (9 − 3), not 7.

In the corpora

• British biscuit, pavement and lift are American cookie, sidewalk and elevator.

Trees and pragmatics

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