merit
part of speech
noun (merit, merits — a merit; uncountable merit); verb (merit, merits, merited, meriting)
meaning for a pupil
1) Merit is the quality of being good and deserving praise or a reward. tree →
2) The merits of something are its good points. tree →
3) (school) A merit is a point, star or certificate a pupil gets for good work or good behaviour. tree →
4) To merit something is to deserve it. tree →
sense in the lessons
In school, merits are part of reward systems: pupils collect merits for effort, kindness or good homework. In adult life, people are chosen "on merit" when they are picked because they are the best, not because of who they know. In formal writing you "weigh the merits" of ideas. Phrases: "on merit", "merit award", "the merits and drawbacks", "worthy of merit".
examples
- I got a merit for my story about the dragon. tree →
- Jake has twenty merits this term. tree →
- Each idea has its merits. tree →
- She was chosen for the team on merit, not because her dad is the coach. tree →
- Your drawing merits a place on the wall. tree →
- (formal) The proposal was judged on its merits. tree →
- Ten merits earn you a bronze certificate. tree →
- I jumped the highest; but in this world merit seldom meets its reward. tree →
note
As a quality it is uncountable ("a work of great merit"); as a school reward it is countable ("three merits"). The verb is formal: "This merits a reward" = "This deserves a reward". Adjective: meritorious (formal). In maths problems about merits, they are usually counted like points: if 10 merits make a certificate, 35 merits make 3 certificates with 5 left over.
In the corpora
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «merit» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.