leap

«leap» in Mova's school dictionary: to jump high or far — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

verb (leap, leaps, leapt or leaped, leaping); noun (a leap, leaps)

meaning for a pupil

1) To leap means to jump high or far. tree →

2) To leap also means to move or act suddenly, like leaping out of bed. tree →

3) A leap is a big jump, or a big sudden change. tree →

4) A leap year has 366 days, with an extra day at the end of February. tree →

sense in the lessons

In stories and nature lessons, frogs, deer and kangaroos leap. In maths and calendars, a leap year comes about every four years and February has 29 days; years divisible by 4 are usually leap years. In everyday talk, «leap at the chance» means to accept eagerly. Phrases: leap year, leap over, leap at, a leap forward, by leaps and bounds.

examples

• The frog leapt into the pond. tree →
• The deer leaped over the fence. tree →
• She leapt out of bed when she heard the news. tree →
• It was a giant leap for science. tree →
• In a leap year, February has 29 days. tree →
• The cat made a great leap onto the shelf. tree →
• His reading has improved by leaps and bounds. tree →
• He leapt at the chance to go camping. tree →
• The king leaped from his horse. tree →

note

Past: leapt (British, common in stories) or leaped (common in the USA); both are correct. A leap year has 366 days instead of 365. «Leap» is a bit bigger or more literary than «jump».

In the corpora

• Breaching means leaping out of the water; scientists think whales do it to signal, show off or knock off skin pests.
• Sifakas are lemurs built for leaping between trees, so on the ground they bounce sideways with their arms up, like dancers.
• Jumping spiders leap many times their body length by pushing blood into their back legs, and tie on a silk safety line first.
• Sifakas are leaping lemurs that hop sideways on two legs across open ground and can leap about ten metres from tree to tree.
• Tree kangaroos live in rainforests, climb with strong arms and can leap many metres down to the ground without getting hurt.

Trees and pragmatics

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