seed

«seed» in Mova's school dictionary: the small hard part of a plant that can grow into a new… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun, verb (seed, seeds, seeded, seeding)

meaning for a pupil

1) A seed is the small hard part of a plant that can grow into a new plant. tree →

2) Seeds are also the small pips inside fruit, like apple seeds or melon seeds. tree →

3) To seed a field is to plant seeds in it. tree →

4) In sport a seed is a strong player placed so that top players do not meet early in a tournament. tree →

5) «The seed of an idea» is where an idea starts. tree →

6) In some dialect speech, seed is written for see or seen. tree →

sense in the lessons

Science: a seed needs water, warmth and air to germinate (start to grow); seeds are spread by wind, water and animals. Gardening: plant seeds in rows, a packet of seeds, seed trays. In maths they are things counted: seeds planted in rows, packets of seeds, seeds that grow and seeds that do not. Food: sunflower seeds, sesame seeds.

examples

• She planted 5 rows of 8 seeds. tree →
• A packet has 30 seeds. tree →
• Only 24 of the seeds grew. tree →
• How many seeds are in 4 packets? tree →
• A tiny acorn is the seed of a huge oak tree. tree →
• Birds eat the seeds from the sunflower heads. tree →
• Spit out the watermelon seeds. tree →
• The wind carries dandelion seeds far away. tree →
• She was the top seed in the tennis tournament. tree →
• You oughter seed dat toof, boss. tree →

note

Countable: a seed, seeds. Rows × seeds per row, packets × seeds per packet; seeds that grew + seeds that did not = all. Trap: «seeds» and «plants» may not be the same number, since not every seed grows. Do not confuse «seed» with «cede» (give up) — they sound alike. Myth: swallowing a fruit seed does not make a tree grow in your tummy.

In the corpora

• Cassowaries swallow fruit whole and spread the seeds of over 200 kinds of plants in their droppings.
• Dandelion seeds float on tiny parachutes into pavement cracks, where dust and water collect, and a long taproot finds water deep down.
• Agoutis open hard Brazil nut pods and bury spare seeds, and the forgotten seeds grow into new Brazil nut trees.
• Chickens scratch and peck for seeds, worms and insects; they are omnivores and will even eat mice and small frogs.
• Mice prefer grains, seeds and sweet foods to cheese, so peanut butter works better in humane traps.

Trees and pragmatics

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