expletive

«expletive» in Mova's school dictionary: a swear word or rude exclamation, said when angry, hurt… — 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 expletive, expletives); adjective (formal)

meaning for a pupil

1) An expletive is a swear word or rude exclamation, said when angry, hurt or surprised. tree →

2) (grammar) An expletive is a word like «it» or «there» that fills a place in a sentence without meaning, as in «There is a cat» or «It is raining». tree →

sense in the lessons

In news and formal writing, «expletive deleted» shows a swear word was removed. Pupils meet it in stories and when talking about polite language. In grammar lessons it is a dummy word. Phrases: «expletive deleted», «a string of expletives».

examples

• He dropped the hammer on his toe and let out an expletive. tree →
• The newspaper replaced the expletive with stars. tree →
• Please don't use expletives in class. tree →
• A string of expletives came from the angry driver. tree →
• In «It is snowing», «it» is an expletive. tree →
• The coach shouted an expletive when the ball missed. tree →

note

Formal word for «swear word». Countable. Swear words are rude; use polite words in school. In grammar, the expletive «it» or «there» has no real meaning of its own.

In the corpora

• "Expletive deleted" means a swear word was said here and has been left out of the written record.

Trees and pragmatics

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