practice

«practice» in Mova's school dictionary: doing something again and again to get better at it, like… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (practice, practices); verb in US English (practice, practices, practiced, practicing); UK verb spelt practise (practise, practises, practised, practising)

meaning for a pupil

1) Practice is doing something again and again to get better at it, like playing the piano every day. tree →

2) A practice is a meeting where a team trains, like football practice. tree →

3) A practice is also the way something is usually done, a habit: it is good practice to wash your hands. tree →

4) A doctor's or dentist's practice is the place where they work. tree →

5) Practice can also be a verb, meaning to carry on an activity regularly, as a habit or skill. tree →

sense in the lessons

In maths: time spent practising: minutes per day, total over a week, or practice sessions counted; often a rate: total = days × time per day. In school: practice questions, spelling practice. In sport and music: practice makes you better; «practice makes perfect». Phrases: piano practice, football practice, in practice, out of practice, put into practice, practice makes perfect.

examples

• She does 20 minutes of piano practice each day. tree →
• Football practice is 2 hours long. tree →
• How many minutes of practice in 5 days? tree →
• He went to 3 practices this week. tree →
• Practice makes perfect. tree →
• We did some spelling practice before the test. tree →
• I am out of practice, so I play slowly now. tree →
• It is good practice to check your answer. tree →
• The dentist's practice is next to the library. tree →
• But vainly they practice their cruel arts, For nought can sever our two fond hearts.’ tree →

note

In the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand the noun is «practice» and the verb is «practise» (like advice / advise); in the USA both are «practice». Often a time per day (a rate): total = days × time per day. Trap: change minutes to hours where asked (60 minutes = 1 hour).

In the corpora

• Lots of young adults find phone calls to strangers scary; planning what to say first helps, and it gets easier with practice.
• Homework is practice; copying it skips the learning and shows up in tests.
• A bot can be a good practice partner, for example quizzing times tables.
• Asking a bot for practice questions is a smart way to revise, if they cover the right topics.
• Focused practice means practising with full attention on one goal; watching the clock while repeating easy parts changes very little.

Trees and pragmatics

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