sacrifice
part of speech
noun (a sacrifice, sacrifices; sacrifice — uncountable); verb (sacrifice, sacrifices, sacrificed, sacrificing)
meaning for a pupil
1) Giving up something you value for something more important or for someone else: Her parents made sacrifices so she could go to college. tree →
2) Verb: to give up something valuable for a reason. tree →
3) In old religions, killing an animal or offering something to a god. tree →
4) (games) Giving up a piece on purpose to gain an advantage, as in chess. tree →
sense in the lessons
In stories heroes make sacrifices to save others. In everyday life you sacrifice time playing to study or save money. In history lessons ancient peoples offered sacrifices to gods. In chess a sacrifice loses a piece to win later. In baseball a «sacrifice» play gets the batter out but moves a runner on.
examples
- She sacrificed her break to help a friend with maths. tree →
- Firefighters sometimes sacrifice their own safety to save others. tree →
- The ancient Greeks made sacrifices to their gods. tree →
- He sacrificed his knight to trap the king. tree →
- Saving for a bike means sacrificing sweets for a while. tree →
- Remembrance Day honours the sacrifice of soldiers. tree →
- She would not sacrifice herself for others. tree →
note
Spelling: sacri-fice (not «sacrafice»). Say SAK-ri-fise. Adjective: sacrificial. In maths, giving up something reduces one total to grow another.
In the corpora
- For soldiers, words like "the fallen" and "made the ultimate sacrifice" show respect for those who died in war.
- "Made the ultimate sacrifice" means died in war while serving one's country.
- Helping a friend with your own sacrifice is different from lying for them — know the difference.
- The Aztecs believed the sun needed offerings and sacrificed people, often war captives, so their neighbours feared and hated them.
- Christians see Jesus' death for others as the greatest example of self-sacrifice.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «sacrifice» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.