plank
part of speech
noun (plank, planks)
meaning for a pupil
1) A plank is a long, flat piece of wood. tree →
2) The plank is also an exercise where you hold your body straight like a board, resting on your arms and toes. tree →
3) A plank can be one main idea of a plan, as in a political plan. tree →
sense in the lessons
In maths: pieces of wood counted, cut or measured; length of planks; cutting into equal pieces. In building and D&T (design and technology): making shelves, bridges, treehouses. In PE: holding a plank for 30 seconds. In stories: pirates make prisoners «walk the plank».
examples
- A plank is 6 meters long. tree →
- He cuts the plank into 3 equal pieces. tree →
- They need 20 planks for the fence. tree →
- Each plank costs 4 dollars. tree →
- We laid a plank across the stream to cross it. tree →
- Hold the plank for 30 seconds. tree →
- In the story, the pirates made him walk the plank. tree →
- Dad nailed the planks together to make a treehouse floor. tree →
- The lovely Helena steps across the plank. tree →
note
Cutting into equal pieces = divide. Planks laid end to end = add lengths. Trap: the number of cuts is one less than the number of pieces. Safety: carry long planks with care and watch for splinters and nails.
In the corpora
- "Thick as two short planks" means very stupid; it is a British joke.
- He lay stiff as a plank for an hour, then sprinted to his parents' room so fast he hit the door frame.
- Jesus said to take the plank out of your own eye before taking the speck out of your brother's eye.
- A beam bridge is a plank resting on supports.
- When a plank or beam bends under a load, its top is squashed and its bottom is stretched.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «plank» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.