measure

«measure» in Mova's school dictionary: to find out the size, length, weight, time or amount of… — 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

verb (measure, measures, measured, measuring); noun (a measure, measures)

meaning for a pupil

1) To measure is to find out the size, length, weight, time or amount of something with a tool, like a ruler, a tape, scales or a clock. tree →

2) «It measures 5 cm» tells how big something is. tree →

3) A measure is an amount or a unit for it, like a cup or a metre. tree →

4) A measure is also a step taken to do something: «safety measures». tree →

5) In music, a measure is one short part of a tune (a bar). tree →

sense in the lessons

finding a length, weight, time or volume; «measures 5 cm» gives a size; in science you measure in experiments and write the results with units; in cooking you measure cups and spoons; phrases «measure out», «measure up», «tape measure», «for good measure» (a little extra)

examples

• The pencil measures 12 cm. tree →
• Measure the length of the table. tree →
• She measured 3 cups of flour. tree →
• The room measures 4 m by 5 m. tree →
• The nurse measured my height: 1 metre 32. tree →
• We measured the temperature of the water every hour. tree →
• The school took safety measures after the storm. tree →
• Add one more cookie for good measure. tree →
• They were measured and found to be correct. tree →

note

«Measures X» states a size. «Measures 4 m by 5 m» gives length and width (area 20 square metres). Trap: «4 m by 5 m» names the two sides; multiply them only when the area is asked, add them twice for the perimeter. Always write the unit with a measurement. Noun «measurement» is the result you get.

In the corpora

• Tablets, less salt and more exercise can lower high blood pressure, and measuring it only feels like a tight squeeze.
• Scene: in Dublin, Nan sees a man with a tape measure outside the Kellys' house.
• The coldest temperature ever measured at a weather station was about minus 89 degrees Celsius, at Vostok Station in Antarctica in 1983.
• Banana skins are slippery because of a gel on the inside; scientists who measured it won the joke Ig Nobel Prize in 2014.
• In the 1970s Peter and Rosemary Grant measured finch beaks changing in just a few years after a drought.

Trees and pragmatics

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