lots

«lots» in Mova's school dictionary: a large number or amount: «lots of friends», «lots of water» — 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

noun (lots — plural of lot; «lots of»); adverb (lots — very much, informal)

meaning for a pupil

1) «Lots» or «lots of» means a large number or amount: «lots of friends», «lots of water». tree →

2) Lots (adverb, informal) means very much: «I feel lots better». tree →

3) Lots can also be the plural of «lot»: pieces of land, or things sold at an auction, or slips drawn to decide something. tree →

sense in the lessons

In everyday talk and stories, «lots of» is the friendly way to say «many» or «much». In maths, «lots of» can mean groups of: «3 lots of 4» means 3 × 4 = 12, a common way to explain multiplying. Phrases: «lots and lots», «lots of love» (end of a letter), «draw lots» (choose by chance).

examples

• There are lots of apples on the tree. tree →
• I have lots of homework tonight. tree →
• Three lots of five make fifteen. tree →
• Lots of love, Grandma. tree →
• She feels lots better today. tree →
• We drew lots to choose who went first. tree →
• Lots and lots of people came to the fair. tree →
• Drink lots of water on a hot day. tree →
• “Lots of little boys,” sneered Liza. tree →

note

«Lots of» works with countable (lots of books) and uncountable nouns (lots of milk). It is informal; in formal writing use «many» or «much». Verb agrees with the noun after it: «Lots of people are here», «Lots of water is spilt». Maths: «4 lots of 3» = 4 × 3.

In the corpora

• Lots of young adults find phone calls to strangers scary; planning what to say first helps, and it gets easier with practice.
• Online cruelty drives real people off social media; memes mocking someone's looks are bullying, even when lots of people share them.
• "Lots of people feel like that after a scary film, love.
• In graffiti slang, bombing means spraying lots of tags quickly, usually illegally; it has nothing to do with real bombs.
• So a mouse's whole life is about not being seen, not being caught and having lots of babies.

Trees and pragmatics

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