pressure
part of speech
noun (pressure, uncountable; a pressure, pressures); verb (pressure, pressures, pressured, pressuring)
meaning for a pupil
1) Pressure is how hard something pushes on a surface: press on a cut to stop the bleeding. tree →
2) Air pressure and water pressure are the pushing force of air or water. tree →
3) Pressure is also the feeling of being pushed to do something or to do well: pressure from friends, pressure before a test. tree →
4) To pressure someone means to try hard to make them do something. tree →
sense in the lessons
In science pressure is force on an area: the same push on a smaller area makes more pressure, so a sharp knife cuts and snowshoes stop you sinking. Air pressure changes with the weather and with height, and water pressure grows deeper underwater. In first aid you press firmly on a bleeding cut. In lessons about feelings, «peer pressure» is when friends push you to do things you don't want to, and you can say no. Phrases: under pressure, peer pressure, blood pressure, apply pressure, tyre pressure.
examples
- Press on the cut to put pressure on it and stop the bleeding. tree →
- Air pressure is lower at the top of a mountain. tree →
- Your ears may pop because of the pressure on a plane. tree →
- She felt a lot of pressure before the spelling test. tree →
- Don't let anyone pressure you into doing something dangerous. tree →
- Check the tyre pressure before a long bike ride. tree →
- Water pressure gets stronger the deeper you dive. tree →
- The nurse measured Grandma's blood pressure. tree →
- I knew him directly by the pressure of his hand." tree →
note
Mostly uncountable: «a lot of pressure». The verb is «pressure» (or in the UK also «pressurise»). It comes from «press». Peer pressure is pressure from people your own age. In science, pressure is not the same as force: pressure depends on the area too.
In the corpora
- Many adults take a tablet every day to keep a long-term condition, like high blood pressure, under control.
- Tablets, less salt and more exercise can lower high blood pressure, and measuring it only feels like a tight squeeze.
- Vent water can be hotter than three hundred degrees, but it does not boil because of the huge pressure of the deep sea.
- Dried tardigrades survive great cold, high pressure and radiation, but they are not immortal, and active tardigrades are quite fragile.
- Warm drinks hold less dissolved gas, so pressure in a can rises and cans left in a hot car can burst.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «pressure» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.