red
part of speech
adjective (red, redder, reddest); noun (red, reds)
meaning for a pupil
1) Red is the color of strawberries, blood and fire trucks. tree →
2) Red hair is orange-brown hair. tree →
3) To go red is to blush, when your face turns pink from shame or heat. tree →
4) «In the red» means owing money, having less than nothing in the bank. tree →
5) (casual) «Red» can mean red wine; «redhead», «ginger» (UK, Australia) and «bluey» (Australian slang, a red-haired person) are words for red hair. tree →
6) (casual) «See red» means get very angry; «paint the town red» means go out and have fun; «red-letter day» means a very special day. tree →
7) (rude) «Ginger» or «carrot top» used to tease is unkind. tree →
8) (formal) Exams and science say «crimson», «scarlet» (shades of red), «red in hue» and «a deficit» for in the red. tree →
sense in the lessons
a color that names a kind: red apples, red peaches, red marbles; on traffic lights red means stop; on paper, red often marks mistakes or danger; phrases «red light», «in the red» (owing money), «red-handed», «see red» (be angry), «red tape» (too many rules), «red card» (sent off in football); in casual talk «ginger», «redhead», «went bright red»; in rough talk «oi, carrot top» (teasing, unkind), «I saw red and threw the ball»; in the exam voice «items of a red hue», «the proportion of red counters», «a deficit»
examples
- There are 7 red peaches. tree →
- How many red apples are in the basket? tree →
- She has 12 red and 8 blue marbles. How many more red than green? tree →
- Stop when the light is red. tree →
- His face went red when he forgot his lines. tree →
- The teacher marked my mistakes in red. tree →
- Red, yellow and blue are primary colors. tree →
- The thief was caught red-handed. tree →
- He got a red card and was sent off. tree →
- I saw red when he took 3 of my cards. tree →
- A bag contains 12 counters of a red hue and 8 of a blue hue. Determine the aggregate number of counters. tree →
- The shop is in the red: it owes 500 dollars. tree →
- The red horseman appeared--the sun rose. tree →
note
A kind word, not a quantity. It picks the group. Trap: «how many apples» may add all colors, «how many red» only one. «of a red hue» in an exam just means red. «in the red» means owing money, a minus amount. «Red» sounds like «read» (past of «read»). Safety: a red light or a red sign means stop or danger.
In the corpora
- Laundry means sorting colours, reading labels and choosing the right temperature; a red sock in a white wash turns everything pink.
- Vivid example: in Toronto, red letters slide across the bottom of a cartoon: BREAKING NEWS.
- Red-green colour blindness affects about 1 in 12 men of European descent.
- Mandrills, the monkeys with red and blue faces, live in the rainforests of central Africa, not on the open savanna.
- Butterflies and flies taste with their feet, so a red admiral landing on a rotting plum is tasting it as it lands.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «red» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.