incident

«incident» in Mova's school dictionary: something that happens, especially something unusual… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 2 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (an incident, incidents)

meaning for a pupil

1) An incident is something that happens, especially something unusual, unpleasant or dangerous. tree →

2) (formal) An incident is used in police and news reports for a crime, accident or fight, sometimes as a softer word. tree →

sense in the lessons

In school and safety texts an incident is any event to report: a fall, a fight, a fire alarm. Teachers write incident reports. Phrases: «report an incident», «without incident», «a minor incident».

examples

• Please report any incident to a teacher. tree →
• There was a small incident in the playground. tree →
• The trip went without incident. tree →
• Police are investigating the incident. tree →
• The incident book records every accident. tree →
• There were 3 incidents on Monday and 5 on Tuesday; how many in all? tree →
• Sometimes, however, a less familiar incident occurs. tree →

note

Countable. Do not confuse with «accident» (unplanned harm) or «incidence» (how often something happens). Formal reports may use «incident» to soften something serious.

In the corpora

• The Rat: «No more of those regrettable incidents with the police».
• Serious incidents like suspensions are written on a pupil's school record, which a new school can see.

Trees and pragmatics

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