homeless
part of speech
adjective (homeless); noun (the homeless — a group)
meaning for a pupil
1) Someone who is homeless has no home and may sleep outside, in a shelter or on friends' sofas. tree →
2) «The homeless» means all the people who have no home. tree →
sense in the lessons
In everyday life you may see homeless people in town centres, and charities, food banks and shelters help them. In school, pupils learn that people can become homeless through losing a job, illness, family trouble or a disaster. Kindness matters: homeless people are people like anyone else. Phrases: homeless people, homeless shelter, become homeless, help the homeless, left homeless.
examples
- The flood left many families homeless. tree →
- Our class collected food for a homeless shelter. tree →
- A homeless man sat by the station with his dog. tree →
- The charity gives warm meals to the homeless. tree →
- Losing his job made him homeless for a year. tree →
- The shelter has 40 beds; 32 are full, so 8 are free. tree →
- Being homeless can happen to anyone. tree →
- Whole villages were destroyed, rice-fields burnt up, river beds filled with the burning lava, and the homeless people were in great distress. tree →
note
An adjective: «a homeless person», «homeless people». «The homeless» is used for the group but «homeless people» sounds kinder. It is made of «home» + «-less» (without). Do not use it as an insult.
In the corpora
- A homeless person has nowhere safe to live, often because of losing a job, a family breaking up or illness.
- "Person experiencing homelessness" (official US) means a homeless person.
- "Rough sleeper" (official UK) means a homeless person who sleeps outside.
- Will we be homeless?"
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «homeless» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.