race

«race» in Mova's school dictionary: a contest to see who is fastest — 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 (race, races); verb (race, races, raced, racing)

meaning for a pupil

1) A race is a contest to see who is fastest. tree →

2) To race is to run or go very fast, often against others. tree →

3) A race is a contest to be first to do something: the race to the Moon. tree →

4) A race is also a large group of people that some say share a look or family history; the idea is less used in science today. tree →

sense in the lessons

In maths: an event with distances, times and places (first, second); also counts races run or won; speed = distance ÷ time; relay races split the distance. In PE and sport: sports day races, swimming races, car races. In everyday life: «race home», «my heart was racing». In stories: «The Tortoise and the Hare» — slow and steady wins the race.

examples

• The race is 400 meters long. tree →
• Ann finished the race in 12 minutes. tree →
• He won 5 of the 8 races. tree →
• In a relay race, each runner runs 100 meters. tree →
• We had a sack race on sports day. tree →
• The children raced to the gate. tree →
• In the fable, the tortoise won the race. tree →
• My heart was racing before the test. tree →
• It was a race against time to finish the project. tree →
• Slow and steady wins the race. tree →

note

Gives distances and times, sometimes speed = distance ÷ time; places like first and third are order, not amounts. Trap: «the race of 5 kilometers» is a distance, «5 races» is a count. In a relay, total distance = runners × distance each. The shortest time wins a race, not the biggest number.

In the corpora

• When you see something upsetting, the body reacts fast: the heart races, the cheeks go hot, you may freeze.
• Fire drills work the same way: when you have practised, your body knows the steps even when your heart is racing.
• Husky teams pull sleds across snow, and sled dog races in Alaska run for more than a thousand kilometres.
• Real hedgehogs walk slowly and can trot, but cannot race; Sonic was named for speed, not for biology.
• The old stories are legends: the rat did not really win a race by riding on the ox's back.

Trees and pragmatics

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