re

«re» in Mova's school dictionary: «about» or «on the subject of», used at the top of… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

preposition (formal: re, in letters and emails); prefix (re-); noun (re — the musical note, also spelt ray)

meaning for a pupil

1) Re means «about» or «on the subject of», used at the top of letters and emails. tree →

2) The prefix re- means «again» or «back», as in redo, rewrite, return. tree →

3) Re is the second note of the musical scale do, re, mi. tree →

sense in the lessons

In everyday writing «Re:» starts an email subject («Re: school trip» means a reply about the trip). In word study re- helps you guess meanings: reread = read again, replay = play again. In music lessons it is a sung note. It is often a fragment of a longer word.

examples

• The email subject said «Re: football practice». tree →
• Re your question, the trip is on Friday. tree →
• Do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do. tree →
• Rewrite means write again. tree →
• If you reheat soup, you heat it again. tree →
• Please reread the instructions carefully. tree →
• Replay the video to see the goal again. tree →

note

As a word on its own it is rare; mostly it is the prefix re-. «Re:» in an email reply comes from Latin, not from «reply», though people often think so. Pronounced REE (about) or RAY (music note). Some re- words do not mean «again» any more (report, record, reason).

In the corpora

• re- means again: redo, rewrite, replay.

Trees and pragmatics

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