stone
part of speech
noun, verb (stone, stones, stoned)
meaning for a pupil
1) A stone is a small piece of rock. tree →
2) Stone is the hard material rocks are made of: a stone wall. tree →
3) A stone is the hard seed in the middle of some fruits, like a cherry or a peach. tree →
4) A stone is a jewel: a ring with a red stone. tree →
5) A stone is a unit of weight used in Britain and Ireland: a stone is 14 pounds. tree →
6) A kidney stone is a hard lump that can form in the body. tree →
sense in the lessons
Maths: a thing counted (stones collected, stones in a wall); rarely a unit of weight. Science: rocks and stones, the Stone Age when tools were made of stone. Everyday: stepping stones, «a stone's throw» (very near), «kill two birds with one stone» (do two things at once).
examples
- Ben found 14 stones on the beach. tree →
- The wall uses 300 stones. tree →
- He threw 5 stones into the lake. tree →
- Each stone weighs 2 pounds. tree →
- My dad weighs 12 stone. tree →
- Take the stone out of the peach before you eat it. tree →
- We crossed the stream on stepping stones. tree →
- The park is just a stone's throw from our house. tree →
- The stones slip under my feet! tree →
note
Countable for pieces (stones); uncountable for the material (made of stone). Usually the thing counted. Trap: in British problems «stone» can be a weight (one stone is 14 pounds), and the plural is often «stone»: 12 stone. Safety: never throw stones at people, cars or animals.
In the corpora
- Ultramarine blue, made from a stone, once cost more than gold.
- Wild chimpanzees make tools: they fish for termites with stripped twigs, crack nuts with stones and use leaves as sponges.
- Sea otters smash shellfish on a stone laid on the chest and keep a favourite stone in a loose skin pocket under the arm.
- Fish can learn simple mazes and remember the way, sometimes using landmarks like stones or plants.
- Some male penguins give stones to females as part of choosing a partner.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «stone» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.