frost

«frost» in Mova's school dictionary: Thin white ice crystals that form on grass, cars and… — 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 (frost — uncountable; a frost, frosts); verb (frost, frosts, frosted, frosting)

meaning for a pupil

1) Thin white ice crystals that form on grass, cars and windows when the air is below freezing, especially on cold clear nights. tree →

2) Weather cold enough to freeze water (a hard frost). tree →

3) To cover with frost or become covered with it. tree →

4) (US) To put icing on a cake (frosting = icing). tree →

sense in the lessons

In science, frost forms when water vapour in the air touches a very cold surface and turns straight into ice crystals; it is part of the water cycle and weather. In everyday life: scraping frost off car windows, frosty grass at playtime. In safety: frosty paths and roads are slippery; frost can damage plants (gardeners protect them). Phrases: hard frost, first frost, frosty (adjective), frostbite, Jack Frost (a make-believe character).

examples

• There was frost on the grass this morning. tree →
• Dad scraped the frost off the car window. tree →
• Frost makes beautiful patterns on the glass. tree →
• Be careful — the path is slippery with frost. tree →
• The first frost killed the tomato plants. tree →
• Frost forms on clear, cold nights. tree →
• We frosted the cupcakes with pink icing. tree →
• It certainly was a dreadfully hard frost. tree →

note

«Frost» (uncountable: there was frost) but «a hard frost» or «frosts». In the USA «frosting» = icing on a cake. Frostbite is an injury to fingers, toes, nose or ears from extreme cold.

In the corpora

• Frost forms when water vapour turns straight into ice on a surface below freezing.
• Gritters spread salt before a frost because salty water freezes at a lower temperature than plain water, so ice forms less easily.
• diDUS is a loving word for grandad, DId is shorter, and DId MorOz is Grandfather Frost, an old New Year figure.
• In very hard frost road salt stops working, because even salty water freezes when it is cold enough.
• Wind, rain, ice and frost slowly break rocks into smaller pieces; this is called weathering.

Trees and pragmatics

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