stir
part of speech
verb (stir, stirs, stirred, stirring); noun (a stir)
meaning for a pupil
1) To stir is to move a spoon or stick round and round in a liquid or mixture to mix it. tree →
2) To stir can mean to move slightly: The baby stirred in her sleep. tree →
3) A stir is excitement or trouble among people: The news caused a stir. tree →
4) To stir up means to cause trouble or strong feelings. tree →
sense in the lessons
In cooking and science lessons, stirring helps a solid like sugar or salt dissolve faster in water, and mixes ingredients evenly. In stories, a character stirring means waking or moving; «stirring up trouble» means causing arguments on purpose. Phrases: stir in, stir up, cause a stir, stir-fry.
examples
- Stir the soup with a wooden spoon. tree →
- Stirring helps the sugar dissolve. tree →
- Stir the paint before you use it. tree →
- The cat stirred and opened one eye. tree →
- The new pupil caused quite a stir. tree →
- Do not stir up trouble in the playground. tree →
- We made a vegetable stir-fry. tree →
- Stir in the eggs slowly. tree →
- She was afraid, and didn't stir. tree →
note
Past: stirred, stirring (double r). Stirring does not make things dissolve that cannot dissolve (sand), it only speeds it up. Be careful stirring hot pans: use a long spoon and keep the handle turned in.
In the corpora
- Toad: «Glorious, stirring sight! ...
- But when the Magician asks for a Magic, Pau Amma can only stir up the sea.
- Heat, stirring and small grains all make dissolving faster, which is why loose sugar vanishes before a sugar cube does.
- Small grains dissolve faster than a lump, because they have more surface for the water to touch; stirring helps too.
- And ice cream feels smooth because it is stirred while freezing, keeping its ice crystals tiny.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «stir» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.