milestone
part of speech
noun (a milestone, milestones)
meaning for a pupil
1) A stone by the side of a road showing how many miles it is to a town. tree →
2) An important event or step in someone's life or in a project, like a first word or a 100th birthday. tree →
sense in the lessons
In everyday life: «a big milestone» for a baby's first steps, starting school, a team's 1000th goal. In history: Roman roads had milestones. In stories, a traveller counts the milestones to see how far he has come. Phrases: reach a milestone, an important milestone, mark a milestone.
examples
- The old milestone said «London 12 miles». tree →
- Walking was a big milestone for my baby brother. tree →
- Our school reached a milestone: 500 books read! tree →
- Toad sped past milestone after milestone in his motor car. tree →
- Losing your first tooth is a milestone. tree →
- The Romans put milestones along their roads. tree →
- Finishing the project was an important milestone for the class. tree →
- The Prince hurried to the town, but Hyacinthia remained behind disguised as a white milestone on the road. tree →
note
Countable: a milestone, two milestones. The road sense is old and literal; the «important step» sense is now the common one. Not the same as «millstone» (a heavy stone for grinding grain; «a millstone round your neck» is a burden).
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «milestone» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.