mirror

«mirror» in Mova's school dictionary: a piece of special glass with a shiny back in which you… — 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

noun (a mirror, mirrors); verb (mirror, mirrors, mirrored, mirroring)

meaning for a pupil

1) A mirror is a piece of special glass with a shiny back in which you can see yourself and things behind you. tree →

2) To mirror something is to copy it exactly or show it like a reflection. tree →

3) A mirror image is a reflection where left and right are swapped. tree →

4) In fairy tales, a magic mirror can talk and answer questions. tree →

sense in the lessons

In science, a mirror reflects light: light bounces off at the same angle it hits; this is how periscopes work. Cars have rear-view and wing mirrors so drivers can see behind. In maths, a mirror line (line of symmetry) splits a shape into two matching halves, and reflecting a shape in a mirror line is a transformation. Phrases: look in the mirror, mirror image, mirror line, rear-view mirror, smash a mirror.

examples

• She looked at herself in the mirror. tree →
• A mirror reflects light. tree →
• Draw the mirror image of the shape. tree →
• The mirror line cuts the butterfly into two equal halves. tree →
• Check the mirror before you change lanes. tree →
• Her face mirrored her mother's. tree →
• Writing looks back to front in a mirror. tree →
• and the mirror answered as before: tree →

note

Spelling: mi-rr-or, double r. In a mirror, left and right are swapped, so writing looks reversed. Broken mirror glass is very sharp; tell an adult. Some say breaking a mirror brings seven years' bad luck — this is only a superstition.

In the corpora

• Pigs learn tricks and solve puzzles as well as many dogs, and they can use a mirror to find food hidden behind them.
• Before a bird flies indoors you close windows and doors, cover mirrors and turn off fans.
• Breaking a mirror does not bring seven years of bad luck; that is a superstition, and the only danger is the glass.
• Stage illusions like «sawing a person in half» use special boxes, mirrors and hidden helpers; nobody is hurt.
• The next morning she looked in the bathroom mirror at a nose that was swollen, purple and twice its size.

Trees and pragmatics

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