spinning

«spinning» in Mova's school dictionary: turning round and round quickly on the spot — 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

verb form (-ing of spin: spin, spins, spun, spinning); adjective (spinning: a spinning top); noun (spinning)

meaning for a pupil

1) Spinning means turning round and round quickly on the spot. tree →

2) Spinning is making thread by twisting wool or cotton fibres, like on a spinning wheel. tree →

3) A spider is spinning when it makes silk to build a web. tree →

4) If your head is spinning, you feel dizzy or very confused. tree →

5) Spinning is also an exercise on a bike that stays in one place. tree →

sense in the lessons

In science: the Earth is spinning on its axis, which makes day and night; one full spin takes about 24 hours. Tops, wheels, fans and washing machines spin. In history lessons, spinning wool into thread was a big job before factories. Safety: spinning fast can make you dizzy and fall; keep fingers and hair away from spinning machines and fan blades. Phrases: «spinning top», «spinning wheel», «my head is spinning», «spin round».

examples

• The Earth is spinning all the time. tree →
• The top kept spinning on the table. tree →
• We were spinning round on the playground roundabout. tree →
• The spider was spinning a web in the corner. tree →
• After the ride my head was spinning. tree →
• Keep your fingers away from the spinning fan. tree →
• In the fairy tale, the princess pricked her finger on a spinning wheel. tree →
• The washing machine is spinning the clothes dry. tree →
• A young housewife was spinning late one evening. tree →

note

Irregular past: «spin, spun, spun» (not «spinned»). Double the n: «spinning». Fact: we do not feel the Earth spinning because we move with it smoothly.

In the corpora

• Dancers avoid getting dizzy when spinning by spotting: fixing their eyes on one point and whipping the head round to find it again.
• The Woman is very angry; she shuts her lips tight, takes up her spinning and says nothing.
• Spinning round fast confuses the balance organ in your inner ear, and that is why you feel dizzy afterwards.
• Leo thought about the spinning, glowing, «almost!» box and went quiet.
• Wheels appeared about 5,500 years ago; potters used spinning wheels, and soon wheels were put on carts.

Trees and pragmatics

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