millipede
part of speech
noun (a millipede, millipedes)
meaning for a pupil
A millipede is a small creature with a long body made of many segments, with two pairs of legs on most segments, that lives in damp soil and leaf litter and eats dead plants. tree →
sense in the lessons
In science lessons on minibeasts and habitats, millipedes are found under logs and stones; they are decomposers that break down dead leaves into soil. When frightened they curl into a spiral and may give off a smelly liquid. They are not insects. Phrases: a millipede curled up, minibeast hunt.
examples
- We found a millipede under the old log. tree →
- The millipede curled up into a tight spiral. tree →
- Millipedes eat rotting leaves and help make soil. tree →
- A millipede moves its legs in waves. tree →
- Millipedes like dark, damp places. tree →
- Despite its name, a millipede does not have a thousand legs. tree →
- We counted the millipede's legs with a magnifying glass. tree →
- A millipede is slower than a centipede. tree →
note
Countable: a millipede, millipedes. «Milli-» means thousand and «-pede» means feet, but most millipedes have far fewer than a thousand legs (often under 400; one rare kind has over 1,000). Do not confuse with a centipede: centipedes have one pair of legs per segment, move fast, hunt other animals and can bite; millipedes have two pairs per segment, are slow and eat plants. Neither is an insect (insects have six legs).
In the corpora
- Despite their name, no centipede has exactly one hundred legs, and most millipedes have far fewer than a thousand.
- Millipedes have two pairs of legs on most body sections and centipedes have one pair, which is how you tell them apart.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «millipede» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.