oar
part of speech
noun (an oar, oars)
meaning for a pupil
1) An oar is a long pole with a flat blade at one end, used to row a boat. tree →
2) (idiom, UK informal) To stick or put your oar in means to give your opinion when it is not wanted. tree →
sense in the lessons
In everyday life and sport, rowers pull oars to move a boat; rowing teams race on rivers. In history, Viking longships and Roman galleys used many oars. In safety, boats carry spare oars. An oar is held in an oarlock or rowlock. A paddle (used in canoes) is different: it is held without a fixed place on the boat.
examples
- He pulled hard on the oars. tree →
- The rowing boat has two oars. tree →
- Vikings rowed their longships with long oars. tree →
- We lost an oar and drifted in circles. tree →
- Don't stick your oar in; it's not your argument. (UK informal) tree →
- Eight rowers pulled their oars together. tree →
- "Go to Argus, the shipbuilder, and bid him build a galley with fifty oars." tree →
note
Countable; use an before oar. Homophones: or (this or that) and ore (rock with metal) sound the same in many accents. An oar is fixed to the boat; a paddle is not.
In the corpora
- Sea snakes are very venomous but usually gentle and rarely bite people, and their tails are flat like oars for swimming.
- The Rat is laughing as he pushes him to shore with the oars under his arms.
- Greeks sailed in triremes, fast warships with three rows of oars, and traded olive oil, wine and pottery.
- Viking longships were light and fast, with sails and oars, and could cross the sea and sail up shallow rivers.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «oar» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.