mortar

«mortar» in Mova's school dictionary: a mixture of sand, cement or lime and water used to stick… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (mortar, a mortar, mortars)

meaning for a pupil

1) Mortar is a mixture of sand, cement or lime and water used to stick bricks or stones together. tree →

2) A mortar is a strong bowl in which you crush things with a pestle. tree →

3) A mortar is also a short gun that fires shells high into the air, used in war. tree →

4) A mortarboard is a flat square hat worn at graduations. tree →

sense in the lessons

In design and technology and building; in cooking and science (mortar and pestle); in news about war. Phrases: bricks and mortar, mortar and pestle.

examples

• The builder spread mortar between the bricks. tree →
• Grind the spices with a mortar and pestle. tree →
• Mortar holds the old wall together. tree →
• The news reported mortar fire in the city. tree →
• The mortar dried hard overnight. tree →
• Graduates threw their mortarboards in the air. tree →
• Out of the trunk he made a mortar. tree →

note

Building mortar is uncountable («some mortar»); a bowl or gun is countable («a mortar, two mortars»). «Bricks and mortar» means real buildings, as opposed to online.

In the corpora

• Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar with a pestle among groats, yet will not his foolishness depart from him.

Trees and pragmatics

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