shingles
part of speech
noun (shingles — uncountable illness; shingle — a pebble beach; a shingle, shingles — roof tiles)
meaning for a pupil
1) An illness that causes a painful rash with blisters, usually on one side of the body; it is caused by the same virus as chickenpox waking up again years later. tree →
2) (shingle, UK) Small smooth stones on a beach. tree →
3) Small flat pieces of wood or other material that overlap to cover a roof or wall. tree →
sense in the lessons
In health lessons shingles shows that a virus (chickenpox) can hide in the body for years; it is mostly older people who get it, and there is a vaccine. In geography lessons on coasts, a shingle beach is a pebbly beach, common in Britain. In North America, roof shingles are what most house roofs are covered with.
examples
- Grandad has shingles and his side is very sore. tree →
- You can only get shingles if you have had chickenpox. tree →
- Shingles is not caught from someone's cough the way a cold is. tree →
- Brighton beach is covered in shingle, not sand. tree →
- The storm blew some shingles off our roof. tree →
- The shingle crunched under our feet as we walked to the sea. tree →
- Old people can have a vaccine against shingles. tree →
note
The illness "shingles" looks plural but takes a singular verb: "Shingles is painful." The beach word is usually "shingle" (uncountable: a shingle beach). Roof shingles are countable. Health fact: a person with shingles can give chickenpox (not shingles) to someone who never had it, through the blisters.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «shingles» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.