headlight
part of speech
noun (a headlight, headlights)
meaning for a pupil
1) A strong light at the front of a car, bus, bike, train or other vehicle that helps the driver see the road at night and lets others see the vehicle. tree →
2) A light worn on the head (more often called a headlamp or head torch). tree →
sense in the lessons
In road safety lessons: cars use headlights at night and in fog and rain; cyclists need a white front light and a red back light; walkers should wear bright or reflective clothes so headlights show them up. In science, headlights show how light travels in straight lines and reflects off reflectors. In stories, «like a deer in headlights» means frozen with fear. Phrases: turn on the headlights, dip/high beam, caught in the headlights.
examples
- The car's headlights lit up the dark road. tree →
- Turn on your headlights when it gets dark. tree →
- My reflective vest shines when headlights hit it. tree →
- Bikes need a front light, like a car's headlight. tree →
- The deer froze in the headlights. tree →
- One of the headlights is broken, so Dad is fixing it. tree →
- Drivers dip their headlights so they don't dazzle other drivers. tree →
note
One word: headlight. Usually used in the plural for a car (headlights). «Like a deer/rabbit caught in the headlights» means too shocked to move.
In the corpora
- Bright clothes help drivers see you by day, and reflective clothes shine in headlights at night.
- Reflective material sends a car's headlight beam back towards the driver.
- Fluorescent colours glow brightly in daylight, but reflective material is what shines back in headlights at night.
- A reflective strip bounces car headlights straight back to the driver, so a cyclist wearing one is seen from much further away.
- Road lines are painted with special paint that has tiny glass beads in it, so the lines reflect headlights at night.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «headlight» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.