saliva
part of speech
noun (saliva — uncountable)
meaning for a pupil
Saliva is the clear watery liquid that is made in your mouth; it keeps your mouth wet and helps you chew, swallow and start digesting food. tree →
sense in the lessons
In science, saliva is the first step of digestion: it softens food and contains an enzyme that begins breaking down starch (that's why bread tastes sweeter if you chew it for a long time). Saliva also helps protect teeth by washing away food and acids. Smelling tasty food can make your mouth water (make more saliva). In hygiene lessons, spitting spreads germs, so cover coughs and sneezes. Phrases: «produce saliva», «mouth watering», «swallow saliva».
examples
- Saliva helps you swallow food. tree →
- Your mouth makes saliva all day. tree →
- Smelling cookies made my mouth fill with saliva. tree →
- Saliva starts to digest food in your mouth. tree →
- Saliva helps protect your teeth from acid. tree →
- Dogs drool a lot of saliva when they're hot. tree →
- Spitting saliva at people spreads germs and is rude. tree →
- Doctors can test saliva to look for some illnesses. tree →
- Then suddenly the warrior remembered that he had heard that human saliva was deadly to centipedes. tree →
note
Uncountable: «saliva», not «a saliva». Everyday word: spit (noun and verb); «drool» or «dribble» is saliva running out of the mouth. Pronounced «sa-LY-va».
In the corpora
- Cave swiftlets are among the very few birds that echolocate, and some swiftlets build nests from their own saliva.
- Wounds inside the mouth heal faster than wounds on the skin, helped by saliva and a good blood supply.
- Many people are allergic to proteins in pet skin flakes and saliva, which cause sneezing and itchy eyes.
- It starts in the mouth: teeth chew the food and saliva wets it and begins to break down starch.
- Digestion starts in the mouth with chewing and saliva.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «saliva» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.