marathon
part of speech
noun (a marathon, marathons); adjective (marathon)
meaning for a pupil
1) A running race of about 42 kilometres (26.2 miles). tree →
2) Any very long activity or event that needs lots of energy: a homework marathon. tree →
3) (adjective) Very long: a marathon meeting. tree →
4) Marathon is also a town in Greece, famous for an ancient battle and a legendary bull. tree →
sense in the lessons
In PE and sport, a marathon is the long-distance road race; a half marathon is half that distance. In everyday talk «marathon» means anything that goes on for a long time: «a TV marathon», «a marathon shopping trip». In maths problems the distance may be given: a marathon is 42.195 km. Phrases: run a marathon, half marathon, a marathon session.
examples
- My aunt ran the London Marathon for charity. tree →
- A marathon is about 42 kilometres long. tree →
- We watched a film marathon all afternoon. tree →
- The meeting turned into a marathon. tree →
- She is training for a half marathon. tree →
- Running a marathon takes months of training. tree →
- Packing for the trip was a real marathon. tree →
- Thousands of runners took part in the marathon. tree →
- He accordingly decided to rid the country of the famous bull of Marathon, which had become a terror to the cultivators of the land. tree →
note
Countable: marathons. In maths: marathon = 42.195 km (26 miles 385 yards); half marathon is about 21.1 km. Myth note: the name comes from an old Greek story about a runner from Marathon to Athens. Capital M in race names: the Boston Marathon.
In the corpora
- Together they faced the mighty Persian Empire at Marathon and Thermopylae.
- A marathon is about 42 km, so a 2 km school cross-country is about 21 times shorter.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «marathon» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.