guarantee
part of speech
noun (guarantee, guarantees); verb (guarantee, guarantees, guaranteed, guaranteeing)
meaning for a pupil
1) A guarantee is a promise that something will happen or will work. To guarantee means to promise it surely. tree →
2) A guarantee is also a shop's written promise to fix or replace something if it breaks within a certain time. tree →
sense in the lessons
In maths: a promise, often «to guarantee» a result: how many you must take to be sure of getting one of a kind; think of the worst luck first, then add one. In everyday life: a toy with a 2-year guarantee; nothing can guarantee good weather. Phrases: guarantee that, money-back guarantee, guaranteed to, under guarantee, there is no guarantee.
examples
- How many socks must you take to guarantee a matching pair? tree →
- The shop guarantees the toy for 2 years. tree →
- How many marbles must she pick to guarantee 2 red ones? tree →
- The farmer is guaranteed $3 a box. tree →
- The watch has a one-year guarantee. tree →
- There is no guarantee that it will be sunny tomorrow. tree →
- Practice does not guarantee a win, but it helps. tree →
- The bike was still under guarantee, so they fixed it for free. tree →
- Preparedness for war is the best guarantee of peace. tree →
note
Spelt with «gua» and «-ee»: guar-an-TEE; the u is silent. In «how many to guarantee» problems, think of the worst luck first, then add one. Trap: the answer is not the number of the wanted kind. Trap: with 2 colours of socks, 3 socks guarantee a pair.
In the corpora
- "Flexible hours" often means irregular hours with no guaranteed pay.
- No share is guaranteed to go up; even big famous companies can fall.
- "Double your money, guaranteed" and "free skins, just log in with your password" are well-known scams.
- Ollie is unlucky, not cheated, unless the game promised a guarantee.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «guarantee» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.