force

«force» in Mova's school dictionary: In science: a push or a pull that can make something… — 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

noun (a force, forces; force — uncountable: strength); verb (force, forces, forced, forcing)

meaning for a pupil

1) In science: a push or a pull that can make something move, stop, speed up, slow down or change shape. tree →

2) Strength or power: «He pushed with force». tree →

3) Verb: to make someone do something they don't want to: «Nobody can force you». tree →

4) Verb: to use strength to open or move something: force a door open. tree →

5) A group of people trained to work together: the police force, the air force. tree →

sense in the lessons

In science: forces include gravity (pulls down), friction (slows things down), air resistance, water resistance, upthrust (pushes up in water), magnetism; forces are measured in newtons (N) with a forcemeter; balanced forces keep things still; unbalanced forces change motion. In safety: no one can force you to do something unsafe or to keep a secret that hurts. Phrases: push and pull forces, force of gravity, by force, in force (rules active), the police force, join forces, force open.

examples

• A force is a push or a pull. tree →
• Gravity is a force that pulls things down. tree →
• Friction is a force that slows things down. tree →
• Forces are measured in newtons. tree →
• Nobody can force you to keep a bad secret. tree →
• He forced the door open. tree →
• The police force keeps people safe. tree →
• The two teams joined forces to win. tree →
• Who dares to use force in my palace? tree →

note

Countable when it means a kind of force (forces), uncountable when it means strength. Regular verb: forced (drop the e). In science a force has a size and a direction (arrows on a diagram). Myth: a moving object doesn't need a force to keep moving — it slows because of friction.

In the corpora

• Forced perspective is a camera trick: something close to the camera looks huge and something far away looks tiny.
• Third: people are now the strongest force on the planet.
• So the Badger decides on force: the three of them will move into Toad Hall and stay until Toad is cured.
• Toad struts along the high road, miles from home, singing his own praises: brain has beaten brute force!
• Toad: «Smart piece of work that! … Brain against brute force—and brain came out on the top».

Trees and pragmatics

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