pearl

«pearl» in Mova's school dictionary: A small hard shiny round thing, white or cream, that… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a pearl, pearls; pearl — the material); adjective (pearl, pearly)

meaning for a pupil

1) A small hard shiny round thing, white or cream, that grows inside an oyster or some other shellfish and is used in jewellery. tree →

2) A very precious or excellent thing or person: a pearl of a book. tree →

3) A pale shiny white colour. tree →

4) «Pearls of wisdom»: wise sayings (often said as a joke). tree →

sense in the lessons

In science, a pearl forms when a grain of sand or another irritant gets inside an oyster and it covers it with layers of shiny nacre. In stories pearls are treasure. In maths problems pearls are counted on necklaces. Phrases: string of pearls, pearly white teeth, pearls of wisdom.

examples

• Grandma wears a string of pearls. tree →
• A pearl grows slowly inside an oyster. tree →
• Divers searched the sea bed for pearls. tree →
• Her teeth were pearly white. tree →
• He shared his pearls of wisdom about football. tree →
• A necklace has 48 pearls; if 6 fall off, 42 are left. tree →
• The pirate's chest was full of gold and pearls. tree →
• What had become of those wonderful pearls? tree →

note

Homophone trap: purl (a knitting stitch). Not all pearls are natural; most are farmed (cultured). Adjective: pearly. «Pearl» in a name: Pearl Harbor.

In the corpora

• In the pearl of great price a merchant sold everything he had to buy one precious pearl.

Trees and pragmatics

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