lengthen

«lengthen» in Mova's school dictionary: to make it longer: «lengthen a skirt», «lengthen a sentence» — 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 (lengthen, lengthens, lengthened, lengthening)

meaning for a pupil

1) To lengthen something means to make it longer: «lengthen a skirt», «lengthen a sentence». tree →

2) To lengthen means to become longer: «The days lengthen in spring». tree →

sense in the lessons

In science and geography lessons about seasons (days lengthen in spring, shorten in autumn); in writing lessons pupils lengthen sentences with adjectives and clauses; in maths it means increasing a length. Phrases: «lengthen the days», «lengthen a stride».

examples

• The days lengthen after midwinter. tree →
• Mum lengthened my trousers because I grew. tree →
• Can you lengthen this sentence with an adjective? tree →
• The shadows lengthened as the sun went down. tree →
• Runners lengthen their stride to go faster. tree →
• The teacher lengthened break time because of the sunshine. tree →
• We lengthened the rope by tying two together. tree →
• The queue lengthened as more people came. tree →

note

Regular verb. Made from length + en, like strengthen and widen. In maths, if a 10 cm line is lengthened by 3 cm, it becomes 13 cm long: «lengthen by» means add.

In the corpora

• I am gone like the shadow when it lengtheneth; I am shaken off as the locust.

Trees and pragmatics

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