piranha

«piranha» in Mova's school dictionary: a South American river fish with very sharp… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 2 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a piranha, piranhas)

meaning for a pupil

1) A piranha is a South American river fish with very sharp, triangle-shaped teeth that eats meat as well as plants and fruit. tree →

2) (informal) A piranha can describe a fierce, greedy person who attacks others to get what they want. tree →

sense in the lessons

In science and geography lessons about the Amazon river, piranhas show food chains: they eat fish, insects, seeds and dead animals, and are eaten by river dolphins, caimans and birds. They swim in groups. Films show them as man-eaters, but real attacks on people are rare and usually just bites. Phrases: «a shoal of piranhas», «razor-sharp teeth», «a feeding frenzy».

examples

• Piranhas live in the Amazon River. tree →
• A piranha's teeth fit together like scissors. tree →
• The fishermen pulled a piranha out of the river. tree →
• Piranhas usually swim in shoals for safety. tree →
• Some piranhas eat mostly seeds and fruit. tree →
• In the film the piranhas ate everything in seconds, but that is not true to life. tree →
• The reporters were like piranhas, all shouting questions at once. tree →

note

Plural «piranhas». Say pi-RAH-na (some say pi-RAN-ya). Myth: piranhas do not usually strip people to the bone; that idea comes from films and old stories.

In the corpora

• Piranhas have razor-sharp teeth and tear at dead or injured fish, but most are timid scavengers that shoal for safety.
• When hunters killed most black caimans, piranhas grew in number, because caimans had been eating them.

Trees and pragmatics

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