rib
part of speech
noun (a rib, ribs); verb (rib, ribs, ribbed, ribbing — informal: to tease)
meaning for a pupil
1) One of the curved bones around your chest that protect your heart and lungs. tree →
2) A piece of meat with a rib bone in it (spare ribs). tree →
3) A curved strip that supports something, like the ribs of an umbrella, a boat or a leaf. tree →
4) (informal) To tease someone in a friendly way. tree →
sense in the lessons
In science, the ribs form the rib cage, part of the skeleton: humans have 12 pairs (24 ribs); the rib cage protects the heart and lungs and moves when you breathe. In safety, cycling and contact sports can bruise or crack ribs. In cooking, ribs are a meat dish. Phrases: rib cage, spare ribs, a cracked rib, dig in the ribs (a poke), rib-tickling (very funny).
examples
- Your ribs protect your heart and lungs. tree →
- Put your hands on your ribs and feel them move as you breathe. tree →
- Humans have twelve pairs of ribs. tree →
- He cracked a rib when he fell off his bike. tree →
- We had barbecued ribs for dinner. tree →
- The umbrella had a broken rib. tree →
- My brother likes to rib me about my haircut. tree →
- ‘Husband,’ said she, poking him in the ribs with her elbows, ‘wake up. tree →
note
Countable: a rib, ribs. Past of the verb: ribbed. Myth: men and women have the same number of ribs — 24. «Rib cage» is two words.
In the corpora
- A tortoise's shell is part of its skeleton, joined to its ribs and backbone, so it can never leave it.
- Think of a python in a museum skeleton: it looks like a long zip with a rib on each side of every tooth.
- A few people have an extra small rib in the neck.
- A stitch is a sharp pain under the ribs while running.
- The ribs protect the heart and the lungs.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «rib» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.