fin
part of speech
noun (a fin, fins)
meaning for a pupil
1) A thin, flat part sticking out of a fish's or sea animal's body that helps it swim, steer and balance. tree →
2) A similar flat part on a plane, rocket, car or surfboard that helps keep it steady. tree →
3) Flippers worn on your feet for swimming (often called fins). tree →
sense in the lessons
In science, fins are an adaptation for life in water: fish use tail fins to push forward and other fins to steer and balance. Dolphins and whales have fins too, though they are mammals. In safety at the beach: a fin above the water could be a shark or a dolphin — get out of the water and tell a lifeguard. Phrases: dorsal fin (on the back), tail fin, shark fin, swim fins.
examples
- The fish moved its fins to swim forward. tree →
- A shark's dorsal fin stuck out of the water. tree →
- Dolphins have fins, but they breathe air. tree →
- We wore fins to swim faster when snorkelling. tree →
- Rockets have fins to keep them flying straight. tree →
- The surfboard has three fins underneath. tree →
- The fish used its tail fin to turn quickly. tree →
note
Countable: a fin, fins. «Fin» (fish part) and «Finn» (a person from Finland) sound the same. Divers usually call flippers «fins».
In the corpora
- Remoras stick to sharks and rays with a sucker on their heads, and that sucker is really a changed fin.
- Dumbo octopuses have fins that look like elephant ears, and they live deeper than any other known octopus, at nearly seven kilometres.
- A grey porpoise with a smiling face and no back fin still lives there.
- In France the weekend is le week-end, with a hyphen; in Quebec people often say la fin de semaine.
- Fish breathe with gills and most have fins and scales.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «fin» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.