onion

«onion» in Mova's school dictionary: A round vegetable with layers, papery brown, red or white… — 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 (an onion, onions)

meaning for a pupil

1) A round vegetable with layers, papery brown, red or white skin and a strong smell and taste, used in cooking. tree →

2) The plant this vegetable grows from; the onion is a bulb that grows under the ground. tree →

sense in the lessons

In science, an onion is a bulb: it stores food in its layers so the plant can grow again; onion skin is used under the microscope to see plant cells clearly. Cutting onions makes your eyes water because they release a gas that irritates your eyes. In cooking, onions are used in soups, sauces and salads; spring onions (scallions in the USA and Ireland) are young onions. In safety, use a knife only with an adult's help, and keep onions away from dogs and cats because they are poisonous to pets. Phrases: "chop an onion", "onion rings", "spring onion", "layers like an onion", "French onion soup".

examples

• Chopping onions makes my eyes water. tree →
• We looked at onion skin cells under the microscope. tree →
• Mum fried the onions until they were soft and golden. tree →
• An onion is a bulb that grows underground. tree →
• Never feed onions to your dog; they can make it ill. tree →
• Ogres are like onions — they have layers! tree →
• I like onion rings with my burger. tree →
• Spring onions are thin and green at the top. tree →
• The first thing he saw was Mr. McGregor hoeing onions. tree →

note

Use "an": an onion (starts with a vowel sound "un"). Countable: one onion, two onions. Pronounced "UN-yun". In maths recipe problems, "2 onions for 4 people" means 1 onion for 2 people, so 3 onions for 6 people.

In the corpora

• An onion is a bulb whose layers are swollen leaves storing food for next year's growth.
• The moonrat smells strongly of garlic or onion, and despite its name it is not a rat but a cousin of the hedgehog.
• Daffodil bulbs are poisonous and have made people sick when mixed up with onions, so bulbs and onions should be kept apart.
• The Mole shouted «Onion-sauce!
• Slow cooking breaks down the sharp chemicals in onions and lets their sugars brown, so they turn soft and sweet.

Trees and pragmatics

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