snowflake

«snowflake» in Mova's school dictionary: A single piece of snow made of ice crystals, usually with… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a snowflake, snowflakes)

meaning for a pupil

1) A single piece of snow made of ice crystals, usually with six points or sides. tree →

2) (slang, insulting) A person said to be too easily upset or offended. tree →

sense in the lessons

In science lessons snowflakes form when water vapour freezes in clouds; they have six-fold symmetry, which links to maths lessons on symmetry. In crafts, children cut paper snowflakes. The slang sense is used as an insult in arguments; it is unkind. Phrases: no two snowflakes are alike, paper snowflake.

examples

• A snowflake landed on my glove. tree →
• Every snowflake has six sides. tree →
• We cut paper snowflakes for the window. tree →
• Snowflakes drifted down past the streetlight. tree →
• Scientists photograph snowflakes under a microscope. tree →
• (slang, unkind) He called his cousin a snowflake for crying at the film. tree →

note

Countable. «No two snowflakes are exactly alike» is widely said; it is very likely but cannot be proved for every flake. A snowflake has rotational symmetry of order 6.

In the corpora

• Snowflakes have six sides or six arms.

Trees and pragmatics

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