natural

«natural» in Mova's school dictionary: made by nature, not by people or machines, like natural… — 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

adjective (natural, more natural, most natural); noun (a natural — informal)

meaning for a pupil

1) Natural means made by nature, not by people or machines, like natural rock or natural light. tree →

2) Natural also means normal or expected: «It's natural to feel nervous». tree →

3) Natural can mean not fake or pretended. tree →

4) A natural is someone who is very good at something without trying hard. tree →

5) Natural history is the study of plants, animals and other living things in nature. tree →

sense in the lessons

In science, natural materials (wood, wool, stone, cotton) come from nature, while man-made ones (plastic, nylon) are made by people; natural resources include water, soil and oil. Natural disasters are earthquakes, floods and hurricanes. In maths, the natural numbers are the counting numbers 1, 2, 3, … (some books also include 0). In feelings lessons, it is natural to feel sad, angry or scared sometimes. Phrases: natural world, natural disaster, natural numbers, natural resources, naturally.

examples

• Wood is a natural material; plastic is not. tree →
• It's natural to feel nervous before a test. tree →
• An earthquake is a natural disaster. tree →
• The room has lots of natural light. tree →
• Natural numbers are the numbers we count with. tree →
• She's a natural at swimming. tree →
• Just smile and be natural for the photo. tree →
• Rivers and mountains are natural features. tree →

note

Opposite: unnatural, artificial or man-made. Adverb: naturally, which also means «of course». «Natural» does not always mean safe: poisonous mushrooms and snake venom are natural too.

In the corpora

• Photographing children and animals from their eye level makes the picture feel closer and more natural.
• Many zoos have stopped tricks like ball balancing and show natural behaviour instead.
• Alfred Russel Wallace came up with the same idea of natural selection at the same time as Darwin.
• Alice sits with her face in her hands, wondering if anything will ever happen in a natural way again.
• Our noses sense particular molecules; natural gas has no smell, so companies add a smelly chemical to make leaks noticeable.

Trees and pragmatics

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