neck

«neck» in Mova's school dictionary: the part of the body that joins the head to the shoulders — 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 neck, necks)

meaning for a pupil

1) The neck is the part of the body that joins the head to the shoulders. tree →

2) The neck of a bottle or a guitar is its long, thin top part. tree →

3) The neck of a shirt or jumper is the part that goes around your neck. tree →

sense in the lessons

In science lessons about the body, the neck holds the windpipe, the food pipe and the top of the spine, and it lets the head turn. In safety it is a part to protect: never put cords or ropes round your neck, and a neck injury is serious, so do not move someone who hurt it. In stories «neck and neck» means two runners or teams are exactly level; «a pain in the neck» means an annoying person or job; «up to my neck» means very busy or in deep trouble.

examples

• A giraffe has a very long neck. tree →
• My neck is stiff from sleeping badly. tree →
• Wrap a scarf around your neck when it is cold. tree →
• Hold the bottle by its neck. tree →
• The neck of this jumper is too tight. tree →
• The two horses were neck and neck at the finish. tree →
• Never pull a cord tight around anyone's neck. tree →
• Turn your neck slowly to the left and right. tree →
• "What is that on your neck?" tree →

note

Countable: one neck, two necks. The back of the neck is the «nape». Do not confuse «neck» with «throat»: the throat is the inside front of the neck where food and air go down. «Necklace» is jewellery worn round the neck.

In the corpora

• The Australian frilled lizard opens a huge neck frill and hisses to look bigger, then runs away on its back legs.
• The male giraffe weevil has a neck several times longer than its body, and it is found only in Madagascar.
• A cone round a pet's neck after an operation stops it licking its stitches, because licking can open the wound.
• Humans and giraffes both have seven neck vertebrae; a giraffe's are each very long, and almost all mammals have seven.
• A few people have an extra small rib in the neck.

Trees and pragmatics

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