fall

«fall» in Mova's school dictionary: to drop down toward the ground — 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 (fall, falls, fell, fallen, falling); noun (a fall, falls; fall — the season in the USA and Canada)

meaning for a pupil

1) To fall means to drop down toward the ground. tree →

2) To fall is to go down in amount, like prices or temperatures. tree →

3) Fall (in the USA and Canada) is autumn, the season after summer, when leaves fall. tree →

4) A fall is a time when someone or something drops. tree →

5) Falls are a waterfall, like Niagara Falls. tree →

6) To fall asleep is to begin to sleep. tree →

7) Fall ill means to become sick. tree →

sense in the lessons

maths: things that drop (subtract), temperatures or prices that fall (fell by 5 subtracts; fell to 5 gives the new amount); or the season; science: gravity makes things fall; leaves fall in autumn; rain and snow fall; safety: falls are a common cause of injury, hold the rail; stories: fall in love, fall asleep; phrases: «fall over», «fall behind», «fall apart»

examples

• 5 apples fell from the tree. tree →
• The temperature falls 3 degrees. tree →
• In the fall she picked 40 apples. tree →
• How many leaves are left after 12 fall? tree →
• Hold the rail so you don't fall. tree →
• Snow fell all night. tree →
• Leaves turn red in the fall. tree →
• The baby fell asleep in the car. tree →
• We visited Niagara Falls. tree →
• Then he fell ill and died. tree →

note

Falling usually takes away: subtract. Trap: «fell to 5» gives the new amount; «fell by 5» subtracts 5. Past forms: fell, has fallen (not «falled»). British and Australian English say «autumn» for the season.

In the corpora

• Energy bills pay for gas and electricity, and their prices rise and fall with world events.
• Buying, selling or renting a home has many steps, and things can take months or fall through.
• Some cancer treatments make hair fall out because they attack fast-growing cells; the hair usually grows back after treatment.
• Drunk means so much alcohol that balance, speech and judgement stop working properly; drunk people can fall, fight and act unpredictably.
• If someone stops coming to something, ask how they are instead of deciding they have fallen out with you.

Trees and pragmatics

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