gull

«gull» in Mova's school dictionary: A large grey and white seabird with long wings and a loud… — 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 gull, gulls); verb (gull — old: to trick)

meaning for a pupil

1) A large grey and white seabird with long wings and a loud cry, often seen at beaches and harbours; also called a seagull. tree →

2) (old-fashioned verb) To trick or fool someone. tree →

sense in the lessons

In science: gulls eat fish, insects and scraps; they live near the sea but also inland. At the beach: don't feed gulls, keep food covered — they can snatch chips! In old stories «gullible» (easy to trick) comes from the old verb. Phrases: «seagull», «herring gull».

examples

• A gull stole my chips at the beach! tree →
• The gulls cried loudly over the harbour. tree →
• We watched gulls following the fishing boat. tree →
• Gulls have webbed feet for swimming. tree →
• Please don't feed the gulls. tree →
• A gull was standing on one leg on the rooftop. tree →
• Kotick swam back to Novastoshnah, leaving the gulls to scream. tree →

note

Countable. «Seagull» is the everyday word; birdwatchers say «gull» because many live inland. Related word: gullible (easily fooled). Do not confuse with «gully» (a narrow channel).

In the corpora

• Gulls are bold and clever, and they learn that people carry food, so some snatch chips and sandwiches at the seaside.
• Gulls can drink salt water, because glands above their eyes remove the salt and it drips out of their nose.
• Many gulls have moved into towns and nest on flat rooftops, because cities have food and safe roofs away from foxes.
• A gull drops a shellfish onto rocks from a height to smash the shell open.
• Gulls follow a tractor ploughing a field, because ploughing turns up worms and grubs.

Trees and pragmatics

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