losses

«losses» in Mova's school dictionary: soldiers or people killed (and sometimes wounded) in war… — 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

phrase (noun, plural: losses; singular a loss)

meaning for a pupil

1) (euphemism, official) soldiers or people killed (and sometimes wounded) in war or a disaster. tree →

2) money a business loses; the opposite of profits. tree →

3) (literal) games lost, or things lost. tree →

sense in the lessons

Military reports and the news use it to talk about deaths in war without saying «killed». In business and sport, it is a normal word. Register: official, news; all regions.

examples

• News: The army suffered heavy losses in the battle. tree →
• The town counted its losses after the flood. tree →
• The company made losses of two million pounds. tree →
• The team has three wins and two losses. tree →
• Maths: If income is £500 and costs are £700, the loss is £200. tree →
• Chat: «heavy losses» in war news = lots of soldiers died tree →
• He had heavy losses in business, and several times some affairs went wrong with his neighbors. tree →

note

In war news it often means deaths; in business it means money; in sport it means games lost. In maths, a loss is a negative result: costs minus income. Plain words (war): people killed.

In the corpora

• Banks and companies use dry, technical words so that debt and job losses sound like ordinary paperwork.
• "Losses" in war reports means soldiers killed.
• Priya dropped a rank after five losses and decided to play until she won it back.
• Playing on while upset to win a rank back usually leads to more losses.
• The Bible says Christians should «mourn with those who mourn», even for small losses.

Trees and pragmatics

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