gravel
part of speech
noun (gravel — uncountable); verb (gravel, gravels, gravelled/graveled, gravelling/graveling — rare)
meaning for a pupil
1) Lots of small stones and bits of rock, used for paths, driveways and roads, or found in rivers. tree →
2) (gravelly, of a voice) Low and rough-sounding. tree →
sense in the lessons
In geography and science: gravel is made when rocks are broken by water and weather; it lets water drain through, so it is used under paths and in fish tanks. In safety: bikes can skid on loose gravel. Phrases: «a gravel path», «gravel road», «crunch on the gravel».
examples
- The car crunched over the gravel driveway. tree →
- We put gravel at the bottom of the fish tank. tree →
- I fell off my bike on the loose gravel. tree →
- The river bed was covered with gravel. tree →
- Gravel lets rainwater drain away. tree →
- The old farm road is just gravel, not tarmac. tree →
- So he trotted off to the gravel path near the house, and sat down to think. tree →
note
Uncountable: «some gravel», «a bag of gravel», not «a gravel». A single piece is a stone or pebble. Adjective: gravelly (a gravelly voice). Gravel is bigger than sand and smaller than pebbles.
In the corpora
- A sieve lets fine flour through and keeps lumps; long ago gold miners used pans and sieves to wash gold from river gravel.
- "Food gained by fraud tastes sweet, but one ends up with a mouth full of gravel" (Proverbs 20:17).
- Rough surfaces make more friction than smooth ones: a sledge slides far on smooth ice but stops quickly on grass or gravel.
- Bread of falsehood is sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.
- He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, He hath made me to wallow in ashes.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «gravel» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.