metal
part of speech
noun (metal, metals); adjective (metal)
meaning for a pupil
1) Metal is a hard, shiny material like iron, steel, gold, silver, copper or aluminium. Coins, nails and keys are made of metal. tree →
2) Metal also means made of metal: a metal spoon. tree →
sense in the lessons
In maths: a material; things made of metal are counted or weighed; it can split things into groups to add or compare. In science: most metals conduct heat and electricity, and iron is attracted by a magnet (but not all metals are). Safety: metal pots and spoons get hot; never put metal in a microwave or into a socket. Phrases: made of metal, metal detector, heavy metal, scrap metal.
examples
- The box holds 20 metal spoons. tree →
- A metal bar weighs 3 kg. tree →
- She sorted 15 metal and 9 plastic toys. tree →
- Each metal coin is worth 5 cents. tree →
- Gold and silver are precious metals. tree →
- A metal spoon in hot soup gets hot quickly. tree →
- A magnet picks up iron nails but not aluminium cans. tree →
- We put metal cans in the recycling bin. tree →
- Not a tinkling of a metal fringe broke the silence. tree →
note
Homophone: «medal» (a prize) sounds almost the same. Uncountable for the material (made of metal), countable for kinds (gold and silver are metals). Describes the material; no clue to the operation. It can split things into groups to add or compare. Myth: not all metals stick to magnets.
In the corpora
- Builders in Hong Kong still use bamboo scaffolding tied with plastic strips, though more and more metal scaffolding is used there too.
- Looks as if it was made by a sharp edge of something in metal.
- The Rat's chain: a clean metal cut → a door-scraper → a door-mat → a door.
- Pencil "lead" is graphite, a kind of carbon, mixed with clay; it contains no lead metal.
- Most drink cans are aluminium, a light metal protected by a thin invisible layer that stops it wearing away.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «metal» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.