investigate

«investigate» in Mova's school dictionary: To try to find out the facts about something, especially… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

verb (investigate, investigates, investigated, investigating)

meaning for a pupil

1) To try to find out the facts about something, especially a crime or problem. tree →

2) (science, maths) To study or test something carefully to learn about it. tree →

sense in the lessons

In science and maths lessons: «Investigate how temperature affects melting» — plan a fair test, collect results, draw a conclusion. In stories: detectives and police investigate. Phrases: investigate further, investigate a crime.

examples

• Investigate which ball bounces highest. tree →
• The police are investigating the burglary. tree →
• We investigated how plants grow in the dark. tree →
• Investigate the pattern in the times tables. tree →
• Mum went to investigate the strange noise. tree →
• The detective investigated every clue. tree →
• Let the facts of the case be thoroughly investigated. tree →

note

Regular. Noun: investigation; person: investigator. Maths investigations: try examples, look for a pattern, make a rule, test it.

In the corpora

• Elephants investigate new things carefully with their trunks and can smell water several kilometres away.

Trees and pragmatics

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