owl

«owl» in Mova's school dictionary: a bird with a big round face, large forward-facing eyes… — 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 owl, owls)

meaning for a pupil

1) An owl is a bird with a big round face, large forward-facing eyes and a hooked beak that usually hunts small animals at night. tree →

2) Calling a person a «night owl» means they like to stay up late. tree →

sense in the lessons

In science, owls are birds of prey (raptors) and most are nocturnal; they have soft feathers for silent flight, very good hearing, and can turn their heads a long way round. Owls swallow prey whole and cough up pellets of fur and bones, which classes dissect to learn about food chains. In stories owls often stand for wisdom (the wise old owl) or deliver letters (Harry Potter). Phrases: «barn owl», «tawny owl», «snowy owl», «night owl», «owl pellet».

examples

• An owl hooted in the woods at night. tree →
• Owls can turn their heads a long way round. tree →
• The barn owl flew silently over the field. tree →
• We pulled apart owl pellets and found tiny mouse bones. tree →
• Owls hunt mice, voles and insects. tree →
• My sister is a night owl and reads until midnight. tree →
• In the story, the wise old owl helped the animals. tree →
• The snowy owl is white like snow. tree →
• The Owl always takes her sleep during the day. tree →

note

Countable: «an owl» (vowel sound, so «an»). Baby owls are «owlets». Myth: owls cannot turn their heads all the way round (360 degrees); they can turn about three quarters of the way. Myth: owls are not really «wiser» than other birds. Not all owls hunt only at night.

In the corpora

• Owl wing feathers have comb-like front edges, soft fringes and a velvety surface that muffle the sound of flying.
• Owl butterflies have large eye spots on the underside of their wings that may startle birds or draw their pecks away from the body.
• Almost everyone wants to eat a mouse: cats, owls, foxes, weasels, snakes and hawks.
• The wise owl idea comes from ancient Greece, where the owl was the bird of Athena, the goddess of wisdom.
• Owls are expert hunters with superb hearing, but crows and parrots solve much harder puzzles than owls.

Trees and pragmatics

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