tonne

«tonne» in Mova's school dictionary: a unit of mass equal to one thousand kilograms — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a tonne, tonnes)

meaning for a pupil

1) A tonne is a unit of mass equal to one thousand kilograms. tree →

2) Informally, «a tonne» or «tonnes» means a very large amount, as in «tonnes of homework». tree →

sense in the lessons

In maths and science lessons a tonne is the biggest everyday unit of mass in the metric system: 1 tonne = 1,000 kg. It is used for heavy things like cars, lorries, whales and loads of sand. Problems ask pupils to change tonnes to kilograms (multiply by 1,000) or kilograms to tonnes (divide by 1,000). Phrases: «weighs a tonne», «tonnes of», «a five-tonne truck».

examples

• An elephant can weigh about six tonnes. tree →
• One tonne is the same as one thousand kilograms. tree →
• The lorry carried twelve tonnes of sand. tree →
• 3 tonnes is 3,000 kilograms. tree →
• This bag weighs a tonne! tree →
• We had tonnes of fun at the fair. tree →
• A blue whale weighs more than one hundred tonnes. tree →
• The bridge sign says the limit is 7.5 tonnes. tree →

note

Countable noun: one tonne, two tonnes; the symbol is t. «Tonne» (metric tonne) is used in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Ireland. Trap: the American «ton» (short ton) is about 907 kg, and the British «ton» (long ton) is about 1,016 kg, so «ton» and «tonne» are not exactly the same. Homophone: «ton» sounds the same. In maths: tonnes × 1,000 = kilograms.

In the corpora

• The smallest shrews weigh about as much as a paperclip or two, while an elephant weighs several tonnes, millions of times more.
• The blue whale, the biggest animal ever, eats tiny krill, up to several tonnes a day.
• Argentinosaurus may have weighed 70 tonnes or more and been about 35 metres long; these sizes are estimates from a few huge bones.
• The world's rivers carry billions of tonnes of sediment to the sea every year.
• In 1956 Malcom McLean started using standard shipping containers; today about four in five tonnes of world trade go by sea.

Trees and pragmatics

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