minus

«minus» in Mova's school dictionary: take away — 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

preposition (minus); noun (a minus, minuses); adjective (minus)

meaning for a pupil

1) Minus means take away. 7 minus 3 is 4. tree →

2) The sign for minus is −. tree →

3) Minus before a number means below zero: minus 5 degrees. tree →

4) A minus is a bad point, a disadvantage: «pluses and minuses». tree →

5) After a grade, minus means a bit lower: B minus. tree →

sense in the lessons

the word for subtraction; also a negative number, as in minus 5 degrees; in everyday life temperatures and grades; phrases «plus or minus», «minus sign», «pluses and minuses»

examples

• What is 10 minus 4? tree →
• 15 minus 6 equals 9. tree →
• The temperature was minus 3 degrees. tree →
• Twenty minus eight is twelve. tree →
• Write a minus sign between the numbers. tree →
• I got a B minus on my spelling test. tree →
• One minus of the trip is the long drive. tree →
• Count down: 3, 2, 1, 0, minus 1. tree →

note

A direct clue: subtract the number after it from the number before it. Order matters: 10 minus 4 is not 4 minus 10. Trap: «minus 3 degrees» is a temperature below zero, not a subtraction. The answer to a minus sum is the difference.

In the corpora

• The coldest temperature ever measured at a weather station was about minus 89 degrees Celsius, at Vostok Station in Antarctica in 1983.
• moins means minus: cinq heures moins le quart is quarter to five, cinq heures moins dix is ten to five.
• Your freezer at home is about minus 18 degrees; Vostok station once measured about minus 89.
• The change is what you paid minus what the things cost.
• To find how long something lasts on the same day, count the hours from the start to the end: end minus start.

Trees and pragmatics

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