fluke
part of speech
noun (a fluke, flukes)
meaning for a pupil
1) A fluke is a lucky chance, something good that happened by accident, not because of skill. tree →
2) A fluke is a flat parasitic worm that can live inside animals or people. tree →
3) The flukes are the two flat parts of a whale's tail. tree →
4) A fluke is the flat pointed part of an anchor's arm. tree →
5) A fluke can also mean the tail fin of a fish. tree →
sense in the lessons
In everyday life and sport, «It was a fluke!» means a goal or win happened by luck. In maths and science, a fluke result is an odd one that probably happened by chance, so you repeat the test. In nature lessons, whale-watchers see the flukes when a whale dives.
examples
- That goal was a total fluke! tree →
- Was it skill or a fluke? tree →
- Repeat the experiment in case the result was a fluke. tree →
- The whale lifted its flukes and dived. tree →
- Liver flukes can make sheep ill. tree →
- Winning the raffle twice was a fluke. tree →
- He passed by fluke, not by revising. tree →
- Puddock he swam down the brook, Sir Drake he catched him in his fluke. tree →
note
Countable: flukes. Adjective: «flukey» or «fluky» (informal). In science, one strange result can be a fluke; that is why scientists repeat tests and take averages.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «fluke» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.