radar

«radar» in Mova's school dictionary: a system that sends out radio waves and catches them when… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 3 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (radar — uncountable; a radar)

meaning for a pupil

1) Radar is a system that sends out radio waves and catches them when they bounce back, to find where planes, ships, storms or cars are and how fast they move. tree →

2) «On someone's radar» means they know about it or are paying attention to it. tree →

sense in the lessons

In science radar shows how waves reflect; weather radar maps show rain clouds; police use radar to catch speeding cars; airports use it to guide planes. Bats and dolphins use a similar idea with sound (echolocation). Phrases: «on the radar», «under the radar», «weather radar», «radar screen».

examples

• Air traffic controllers watch planes on the radar. tree →
• The weather radar shows rain coming this afternoon. tree →
• The police used radar to check the cars' speed. tree →
• The ship's radar spotted an iceberg. tree →
• Bats find insects in a way a bit like radar, using sound. tree →
• The test is not on my radar yet — when is it? tree →

note

Usually uncountable («radar»), sometimes «a radar» for one machine. It reads the same backwards: r-a-d-a-r (a palindrome). It was first a short form of «RAdio Detection And Ranging». «Under the radar» means not noticed.

In the corpora

• A tornado warning means a tornado has been seen or found by radar, so you take shelter at once.
• The real secret was radar, and the carrot story helped hide it.
• In the Second World War, Britain spread the carrot story to help hide that its pilots used radar.

Trees and pragmatics

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