substance
part of speech
noun (a substance, substances; also uncountable for "importance/meaning")
meaning for a pupil
1) A material or kind of matter with particular qualities, like a sticky substance, or a chemical substance such as water, salt or iron. tree →
2) The most important part or real meaning of something: the substance of the story. tree →
3) Something solid and real, not just talk: there was no substance to the rumour. tree →
sense in the lessons
In science, a substance is any kind of matter: solids, liquids and gases are all substances. A pure substance has only one kind of material; a mixture has two or more. Chemical reactions make new substances. In safety, harmful substances such as cleaning products, medicines and chemicals must not be touched, smelled closely or tasted; look for warning symbols and tell an adult. In English, the substance of an essay is its main ideas. Phrases: "a sticky substance", "harmful substances", "a pure substance", "of substance", "substance abuse".
examples
- Water is a substance that can be a solid, a liquid or a gas. tree →
- A strange green substance oozed out of the tube. tree →
- Never taste an unknown substance. tree →
- Cleaning products contain harmful substances. tree →
- Salt and sugar are both white substances, but they taste different. tree →
- Mixing two substances can make a new substance. tree →
- The teacher said my essay had good substance. tree →
- There was no substance to the rumour. tree →
- The spade struck against a hard substance; it was a stone, that shone dazzling white. tree →
note
Countable for kinds of material ("two substances"). Spelling: sub-stance. Adjective: substantial (large or important). If someone swallows an unknown substance, tell an adult and call poison control or emergency services straight away; do not try to make them sick.
In the corpora
- Green snot does not always mean bacteria: the colour comes from a substance in white blood cells fighting germs.
- An element is a substance made of only one kind of atom: gold is only gold atoms, oxygen only oxygen atoms.
- Think of the elements as the letters of an alphabet: about a hundred letters spell out every substance in the world.
- When atoms change partners, a new substance appears, which is what happens when a nail slowly rusts in water.
- Toast turns brown because sugars and proteins react into new substances; burnt toast is black because it has partly turned into carbon.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «substance» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.