thaw

«thaw» in Mova's school dictionary: to melt: ice or snow thaws when it gets warmer — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 2 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

verb (thaw, thaws, thawed, thawing); noun (a thaw)

meaning for a pupil

1) To thaw is to melt: ice or snow thaws when it gets warmer. tree →

2) To thaw frozen food is to let it become soft and unfrozen before cooking. tree →

3) A thaw is a time of warmer weather when snow and ice melt. tree →

4) If a person or a relationship thaws, it becomes friendlier after being cold. tree →

sense in the lessons

In science lessons on states of matter, thawing is melting: solid ice changes to liquid water above 0 °C. In cooking and food safety, frozen meat must be thawed in the fridge, not left out. In geography, the spring thaw makes rivers rise. In stories «she thawed a little» means she became friendlier. Phrases: «thaw out», «spring thaw», «defrost».

examples

• The snow began to thaw in March. tree →
• Thaw the chicken in the fridge overnight. tree →
• The ice on the pond thawed in the sun. tree →
• After the thaw, the river flooded. tree →
• My frozen fingers thawed out by the fire. tree →
• Ice thaws at 0 °C. tree →
• Their friendship slowly thawed. tree →
• The snow that lay upon it was partially thawed, and the stones crumbled beneath the feet. tree →

note

Past: thawed. «Thaw» is mostly used for ice, snow and frozen food; «melt» is wider (chocolate melts). Opposite: freeze. Safety: never walk on ice that is thawing. Rhymes with «saw».

In the corpora

• The North American wood frog can freeze solid in winter, with its heart stopped, and thaw and hop away in spring.
• Freezing does not kill most germs; they wake up again when the food thaws.

Trees and pragmatics

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