pickle
part of speech
noun (a pickle, pickles; pickle, uncountable); verb (pickle, pickles, pickled, pickling)
meaning for a pupil
1) A pickle is a vegetable, especially a small cucumber (gherkin), kept in vinegar or salty water so it lasts a long time and tastes sour. tree →
2) (UK) Pickle is a thick, chunky, sour-sweet sauce eaten with cheese or cold meat, as in a cheese and pickle sandwich. tree →
3) (informal) To be «in a pickle» means to be in a difficult or awkward situation. tree →
4) (verb) To pickle food means to preserve it in vinegar or salt water. tree →
5) (UK, informal) «Little pickle» is a fond name for a cheeky child. tree →
6) A pickle can also be a small pool of water, a puddle. tree →
sense in the lessons
In science and food lessons, pickling shows how vinegar and salt stop germs and keep food from going bad. In stories, characters «in a pickle» are in trouble and must find a way out. In everyday UK and Irish life, cheese and pickle sandwiches are common; in North America a pickle often comes with a burger. Phrases: «in a pickle», «cheese and pickle», «pickled onions», «little pickle».
examples
- Dad likes a pickle on the side of his burger. tree →
- Can I have a cheese and pickle sandwich? tree →
- We pickled onions in vinegar in science club. tree →
- I was in a real pickle when I forgot my PE kit. tree →
- Grandma calls my baby sister a little pickle. tree →
- Pickling helped people keep food through the winter. tree →
- The jar of pickles was too tight to open. tree →
- So he walked on till he came to the drain near by, with just a pickle of water and a foot of mud in it. tree →
note
Countable for single pickles (two pickles); uncountable for the sauce (some pickle). «Pickled» as an adjective can be old slang for drunk. A gherkin is a kind of pickle.
In the corpora
- Pau Amma's babies hate being «taken out of their little Pusat Taseks and brought home in pickle-bottles.
- Most germs cannot grow in acid, so pickles keep for months in vinegar.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «pickle» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.