leftover
part of speech
noun (leftovers, usually plural); adjective (leftover food)
meaning for a pupil
1) (leftovers) Food that is not eaten at a meal and is kept for later. tree →
2) (adjective) Remaining or not used: «leftover paint», «leftover money». tree →
3) Something that remains from an earlier time. tree →
sense in the lessons
In everyday life and food lessons: keep leftovers in the fridge and eat them within a day or two; heat them until piping hot. Cutting food waste is part of caring for the planet. In maths, «leftover» is the remainder: «24 sweets shared among 5 children: each gets 4, and 4 are left over».
examples
- We had leftovers from Sunday lunch on Monday. tree →
- Put the leftover pizza in the fridge. tree →
- Mum made soup from the leftover vegetables. tree →
- I used the leftover paint for my model. tree →
- Share 17 cards among 3 friends; how many are left over? tree →
- Don't eat leftovers that smell bad. tree →
- The leftover money went into the class fund. tree →
note
As a noun usually plural: «leftovers». As an adjective one word: «leftover cake»; as a verb phrase two words: «There is some cake left over». In division, the leftover is the remainder (r): 17 ÷ 3 = 5 r 2.
In the corpora
- Bread fills ducks with little goodness and rotting leftovers dirty the pond; oats, peas, sweetcorn or duck food are better.
- In many countries it is against the law to feed pigs kitchen leftovers, because meat scraps can spread serious pig diseases.
- The leftover from the factory is oxygen, the gas we breathe.
- Fish should get only as much food as they eat in a couple of minutes, because leftovers rot and poison the water.
- Before stacking plates, scrape the leftovers into the bin or the food caddy, a small bin just for food scraps.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «leftover» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.