peacock
part of speech
noun (a peacock, peacocks)
meaning for a pupil
1) A peacock is a large male bird with a long, brilliant blue-green tail with «eye» patterns, which it spreads out in a huge fan to attract females. tree →
2) Strictly, the peacock is the male; the female is a peahen, and both are peafowl. tree →
3) A person who is vain and shows off how they look can be called a peacock. tree →
4) A peacock butterfly is a butterfly with eye spots on its wings. tree →
sense in the lessons
In science lessons the peacock is a famous example of how males show off colourful features to attract a mate, while the plain brown peahen is camouflaged on her nest. Peacocks are the national bird of India. In stories «proud as a peacock» describes someone very pleased with themselves. Phrases: proud as a peacock, peacock feathers, peacock blue, strut like a peacock.
examples
- The peacock spread its tail in a huge shimmering fan. tree →
- A peacock's tail feathers have spots that look like eyes. tree →
- The peacock screeched loudly in the park. tree →
- The peahen is brown, but the peacock is blue and green. tree →
- He strutted around in his new trainers like a peacock. tree →
- She was as proud as a peacock of her painting. tree →
- We saw a peacock butterfly on the buddleia. tree →
- The peacock is the national bird of India. tree →
- There stood beneath the tree two handsome peacocks. tree →
note
Countable: a peacock, peacocks. Male = peacock, female = peahen, babies = peachicks, all of them = peafowl. Trap: people often call any peafowl a peacock. «Peacock blue» is a bright blue-green colour.
In the corpora
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «peacock» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.