lower
part of speech
adjective (lower, comparative of low; lowest); verb (lower, lowers, lowered, lowering)
meaning for a pupil
1) Lower means less high, closer to the ground, or at the bottom of something. tree →
2) Lower means smaller in number, amount or level. tree →
3) To lower something means to move it down. tree →
4) To lower something like a price, sound or voice means to make it less. tree →
5) Lower can also describe social rank, meaning belonging to the group of people with less money and power. tree →
sense in the lessons
In maths, «lower» means smaller: 5 is lower than 8; a lower temperature is colder; «lower case» letters are the small letters (a, b, c), and «capital» or «upper case» letters are big. In geography, the lower part of a river is near the sea. In everyday life «lower your voice» means speak more quietly; shops lower prices in a sale. In safety, lower heavy objects slowly and carefully with bent knees.
examples
- Write your name in lower-case letters. tree →
- The temperature is lower at night. tree →
- 12 is lower than 20. tree →
- Lower the bucket into the well slowly. tree →
- Please lower your voice in the library. tree →
- The shop lowered its prices in the sale. tree →
- The lower shelf is for the little ones. tree →
- My lower lip is cut. tree →
note
Comparative of «low»: low, lower, lowest. In maths, «lower» = smaller, so «a lower score» has fewer points; but in golf a lower score wins. «Lower case» = small letters. Opposite: «higher», «upper»; as a verb, «raise». Pronounced LOH-er (rhymes with «slower»).
In the corpora
- A credit score is a rating of how reliably someone pays; missing payments lowers it and makes borrowing harder and dearer.
- A sale lowers prices; a bargain is only a bargain if you would have bought the thing anyway.
- Tablets, less salt and more exercise can lower high blood pressure, and measuring it only feels like a tight squeeze.
- Sometimes grown-ups close a door, lower their voices or spell out words so children won't understand.
- In the string family bigger instruments play lower: from highest to lowest they are violin, viola, cello and double bass.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «lower» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.