maul

«maul» in Mova's school dictionary: To attack and hurt badly with claws and teeth, as a bear… — 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 (maul, mauls, mauled, mauling); noun (a maul, mauls)

meaning for a pupil

1) To attack and hurt badly with claws and teeth, as a bear or big cat might. tree →

2) To handle something or someone roughly: the toddler mauled the cake. tree →

3) (informal) To beat a team or person very heavily, or to criticise strongly. tree →

4) (noun, rugby) A group of players pushing together around the player holding the ball. tree →

5) (noun) A heavy hammer for splitting wood. tree →

sense in the lessons

In news and safety lessons, «mauled by a dog/bear» warns of animal attacks. In sports reports a team that loses badly is «mauled». In rugby, a maul is a set play. Phrases: mauled by, mauled to death (news), rolling maul.

examples

• The hiker was mauled by a bear but survived. tree →
• Never tease a dog; it might maul you. tree →
• Stop mauling the bread with your dirty hands! tree →
• Our team got mauled ten-nil. tree →
• The critics mauled the new film. tree →
• The rugby players formed a maul. tree →
• Dad split the logs with a maul. tree →
• The cat mauled my toy mouse. tree →

note

Regular verb: mauled. Do not confuse with «mall» (shopping centre), which sounds the same in many accents (homophone in much of the USA). Safety: stay calm and move away slowly from an angry animal; tell an adult.

In the corpora

• As a maul, and a sword, and a sharp arrow, so is a man that beareth false witness against his neighbour.

Trees and pragmatics

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