fur
part of speech
noun (fur, furs; uncountable for the hair, countable for coats)
meaning for a pupil
1) Fur is the soft thick hair that covers the bodies of many animals, like cats, dogs, rabbits and bears. tree →
2) A fur is a coat or piece of clothing made from animal fur. tree →
3) Fake fur is soft material made to look like animal fur. tree →
sense in the lessons
In maths a word of the story, sometimes a colour or a material that picks which animals to count. In science: fur keeps mammals warm by trapping air; animals in cold places have thick fur, and many grow thicker fur in winter and shed it in spring. In stories: soft, fluffy, warm. Phrases: «fur coat», «covered in fur», «fake fur».
examples
- The cat has white fur. tree →
- A coat has a fur collar. tree →
- Three of the puppies have brown fur. tree →
- A polar bear's thick fur keeps it warm on the ice. tree →
- Our dog sheds fur all over the couch in spring. tree →
- The rabbit's fur felt soft under my hand. tree →
- My hat is lined with fake fur. tree →
- Mammals have fur or hair, birds have feathers. tree →
- A hot wind knocked him senseless and red fire singed his fur. tree →
note
Usually no clue in maths; it may describe which animals to count (those with brown fur). Do not treat it as a quantity. Usually uncountable: «a lot of fur», not «many furs» (unless it means fur coats). Homophone: fir (a kind of tree).
In the corpora
- Green algae grow in a sloth's fur and help to hide it among the leaves.
- The soles of a polar bear's paws have fur and small bumps that grip the ice and keep the feet warm.
- A platypus has a broad flat tail, and a koala has only a tiny stump of a tail hidden in its fur.
- Tiger stripes are on the skin as well as the fur, so a shaved tiger would still look striped.
- Green algae grow in sloth fur and give camouflage among leaves, and moths live in the fur too.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «fur» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.