pregnant
part of speech
adjective (pregnant; pregnancy — noun)
meaning for a pupil
1) A woman or female animal is pregnant when a baby (or babies) is growing inside her body before it is born. tree →
2) A pregnant pause is a silence full of meaning, when everyone waits for what comes next. tree →
sense in the lessons
Everyday life: families say «Mum is pregnant» when a new baby is coming; buses and trains have priority seats for pregnant women. In science, pupils learn that in mammals the baby grows inside the mother; a human pregnancy lasts about nine months, a cat's about two months, an elephant's nearly two years. In stories it signals that a baby is on the way. Phrases: pregnant with twins, get pregnant, a pregnant cat.
examples
- My aunt is pregnant, and the baby is due in spring. tree →
- Please give your seat to the pregnant lady. tree →
- Our cat is pregnant and will have kittens soon. tree →
- A human baby grows for about nine months while the mother is pregnant. tree →
- Pregnant women should not lift very heavy things. tree →
- There was a pregnant pause before the teacher read out the winner. tree →
- Elephants stay pregnant for almost two years. tree →
note
Adjective only: «She is pregnant», not «she pregnants». The noun is «pregnancy» (plural pregnancies). Only females can be pregnant. It is polite to let a pregnant person sit; it is not polite to guess that someone is pregnant if they have not told you.
In the corpora
- When a woman is pregnant, a baby grows inside her womb for about nine months before it is born.
- Grown-ups often say "we're expecting" instead of "pregnant".
- "Expecting" means pregnant; it is polite.
- "In the family way" means pregnant; it is old-fashioned.
- "A bun in the oven" means pregnant; it is a joking phrase.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «pregnant» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.