quarter

«quarter» in Mova's school dictionary: one of four equal parts of something — 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 (quarter, quarters); verb (quarter, quarters, quartered)

meaning for a pupil

1) A quarter is one of four equal parts of something. tree →

2) A quarter of an hour is 15 minutes: «a quarter past three». tree →

3) In the USA and Canada, a quarter is a coin worth 25 cents. tree →

4) A quarter is one part of a game (some sports have 4 quarters) or of a year (3 months). tree →

5) To quarter something is to cut it into four. tree →

6) A quarter can also mean a direction or a source, a place where something comes from. tree →

sense in the lessons

one part of four equal parts: «a quarter of N» is N ÷ 4; four quarters make a whole; in time «quarter past» and «quarter to»; phrases: «a quarter of», «three quarters», «quarter past», «quarter to», «a quarter of an hour»

examples

• Zoe loses a quarter of her stickers. tree →
• Three quarters of the 20 children are girls. tree →
• Tom ate a quarter of the pizza. tree →
• It is a quarter past three. tree →
• A quarter of an hour is 15 minutes. tree →
• I paid with four quarters, which is one dollar. tree →
• Our team scored in the last quarter. tree →
• Cut the apple into quarters. tree →
• Misfortune often assails us from an unexpected quarter. tree →

note

«A quarter of an hour is 15 minutes.» «A dollar is 4 quarters.» «a quarter of N» is N ÷ 4; «three quarters» is 3 × (N ÷ 4). Trap: «a quarter past 3» is about time, 15 minutes. A quarter is the same as a fourth.

In the corpora

• Coral reefs cover less than 1 per cent of the ocean floor but are home to about a quarter of all sea fish species.
• About three quarters of all kinds of life died out; frogs, turtles, crocodiles, small mammals and some birds survived.
• Sadly, more than a quarter of parrot kinds are threatened, mainly by forest loss and by people catching them as pets.
• An owl cannot move its eyes, so it turns its head, but only about three quarters of the way round.
• Grapes should be cut into quarters lengthways for toddlers, and whole nuts and popcorn should not be given to small children.

Trees and pragmatics

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