owe

«owe» in Mova's school dictionary: To have to pay back money that someone lent you — 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

verb (owe, owes, owed, owing)

meaning for a pupil

1) To have to pay back money that someone lent you. tree →

2) To have to give or do something for someone because of what they did: «I owe you a favour». tree →

3) To have something because of someone: «I owe my success to my coach». tree →

sense in the lessons

In maths and money lessons, owing means a debt: if you borrowed $5 and paid back $3, you still owe $2 (subtract). In manners, «I owe you one» means you will help back. Phrases: «owe someone money», «owe someone an apology», «owing to» (because of).

examples

• I owe my brother two dollars. tree →
• You owe me an apology. tree →
• Thanks for helping — I owe you one! tree →
• He borrowed $10 and paid back $6, so he owes $4. tree →
• We owe our safety to the lifeguard. tree →
• The match was cancelled owing to rain. tree →
• “But I owe money to several people.” tree →

note

Past: owed. Pronounced like «oh». «Owing to» = because of. Maths: amount owed = amount borrowed − amount paid back.

In the corpora

• An employment tribunal is a kind of court for work disputes, such as being sacked unfairly or not being paid what is owed.
• Debt is money that has been borrowed and is still owed.
• Bailiffs can collect money owed only after a court decision and many warnings, under strict rules, and cannot take essentials.
• Families don't owe the street their news first; when a baby arrives, the kind reply is «congratulations».
• I owe it all to you, my best of friends!»

Trees and pragmatics

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