spots
part of speech
noun (a spot, spots); verb (spot, spots, spotted, spotting)
meaning for a pupil
1) Small round marks or patches of a different colour on something, like the spots on a ladybird or a Dalmatian. tree →
2) Small red bumps on the skin, such as pimples or the rash of chickenpox. tree →
3) Places, as in good spots for a picnic or parking spots. tree →
4) As a verb, spots means notices or sees something, often something hard to see: she spots a mistake. tree →
sense in the lessons
In science, spots describe animals and patterns (leopards have spots, a ladybird has black spots); in health lessons, spots on the skin can be a sign of an illness like chickenpox or measles; in everyday life we talk about spots on clothes (stains) and parking spots. In stories, "he spots a shadow" tells the reader a character noticed something important. Phrases: "spots and stripes", "come out in spots", "hot spots", "a tight spot" (a difficult situation), "on the spot" (right away, or right there).
examples
- The leopard has dark spots all over its fur. tree →
- My little brother came out in itchy spots when he had chickenpox. tree →
- There are two red spots of paint on my sleeve. tree →
- We found three good spots to put up the tent. tree →
- Mum spots a free parking space and drives in. tree →
- Sam always spots the hidden animal in the picture first. tree →
- A ladybird with seven spots landed on my hand. tree →
- The teacher spots that I forgot to carry the one. tree →
- The Leopard exhibited one by one the various spots which decorated his skin. tree →
note
Spots is the plural of the noun "spot" and also the "he/she/it" form of the verb "spot" (spotted, spotting with double t). In British English "spots" often means pimples; Americans more often say "pimples" or "zits". Spotted can mean "seen" or "covered in spots" (a spotted dress). "On the spot" means immediately, not on a stain. If a problem says "a ladybird has 7 spots", count each spot as one; "spots" on dice are the dots that show the number.
In the corpora
- Photos online are often smoothed with filters; real skin has lines and spots, and nobody looks like a filter.
- Knowing your weak spots, and saying so, is part of being trustworthy.
- A black panther is a leopard or jaguar with extra dark pigment, and its spots can still be seen in bright light.
- Owl butterflies have large eye spots on the underside of their wings that may startle birds or draw their pecks away from the body.
- Sea lions often squabble loudly over the best resting spots on the rocks.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «spots» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.