rainbow
part of speech
noun (a rainbow, rainbows); adjective use (rainbow colours)
meaning for a pupil
1) A rainbow is a curved band of colours that appears in the sky when sunlight shines through raindrops. tree →
2) Anything with many bright colours in bands can be called rainbow, like a rainbow scarf. tree →
sense in the lessons
In science a rainbow shows that white light is made of colours split by water drops (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet); you see one with the sun behind you and rain in front. In stories it is a sign of hope after a storm. Phrases: «a double rainbow», «the colours of the rainbow», «at the end of the rainbow».
examples
- After the rain we saw a rainbow over the hills. tree →
- There are seven colours in a rainbow. tree →
- A prism can make a rainbow on the wall. tree →
- We saw a double rainbow from the car. tree →
- She wore a rainbow T-shirt to school. tree →
- You can make a small rainbow with a garden hose on a sunny day. tree →
- Red is always on the outside of a rainbow. tree →
- The water drops mounted to the clouds and glittered in the rainbow. tree →
note
Countable: a rainbow, two rainbows. One word. Myth: there is no pot of gold at the end of a rainbow — you can never reach its end, because it moves as you move. The seven colours: ROYGBIV.
In the corpora
- The rainbow colours of hot springs in Yellowstone come from different bacteria living at different temperatures, some in water near boiling.
- Universal indicator mixes several dyes, so each pH gets its own colour, a whole rainbow from red to purple.
- A rainbow appears when raindrops bend sunlight and split it into its colours; you see one only with the Sun behind you.
- Colour helps only if you colour the tricky bit, not the whole word in a rainbow.
- "Crossed the rainbow bridge" means the pet died.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «rainbow» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.