incompressible
part of speech
adjective (incompressible)
meaning for a pupil
1) Not able to be squashed into a smaller space. tree →
2) (science) Describing a substance whose volume stays nearly the same when you press on it, such as liquids and solids. tree →
sense in the lessons
In science lessons on states of matter, gases are compressible (air in a syringe squashes) but liquids and solids are almost incompressible, because their particles are already close together. This is why hydraulic machines use liquids. Phrases: almost incompressible, incompressible liquid.
examples
- Water is almost incompressible, so you can't squash it in a syringe. tree →
- Air is compressible, but bricks are incompressible. tree →
- Hydraulic brakes work because oil is nearly incompressible. tree →
- We pushed the plunger: the water stayed the same; it's incompressible. tree →
- Solids are incompressible because their particles are packed tight. tree →
- We squeezed a sealed bottle of water and found it almost incompressible. tree →
note
Opposite: «compressible». Strictly, nothing is perfectly incompressible; liquids squash a tiny bit under huge pressure, so science says «nearly incompressible».
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «incompressible» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.