tortoise
part of speech
noun (tortoise, tortoises)
meaning for a pupil
1) A tortoise is a slow animal with a hard, high shell that lives on land and can pull its head and legs inside the shell. tree →
2) Tortoises can live a very long time, some more than 100 years. tree →
sense in the lessons
Maths: an animal counted; often slow speed, age or a race: distance = speed × time. Science: tortoises are reptiles; they eat plants; tortoise (land) vs turtle (mostly water). Stories: «The Tortoise and the Hare» — slow and steady wins the race.
examples
- The zoo has 5 tortoises. tree →
- A tortoise walks 2 meters a minute. tree →
- The tortoise is 80 years old. tree →
- The hare ran 10 times as fast as the tortoise. tree →
- In the story, the slow tortoise won the race. tree →
- Giant tortoises live on the Galapagos Islands. tree →
- Our pet tortoise sleeps all winter in a box of straw. tree →
- The Tortoise was very glad indeed. tree →
note
Countable: a tortoise, tortoises; said «TOR-tus». The thing counted or a mover with a speed; distance = speed × time. Trap: a tortoise lives on land; a turtle lives mostly in water (in the US people may call both turtles).
In the corpora
- Jonathan, a giant tortoise on the island of St Helena, hatched around 1832 and is the oldest known living land animal.
- Mediterranean tortoises hibernate, and owners guided by a vet keep them steady at about 5 degrees so they neither wake early nor freeze.
- A tortoise's shell is part of its skeleton, joined to its ribs and backbone, so it can never leave it.
- Lonesome George, the last tortoise of his kind from Pinta Island, died in 2012.
- Jonathan, a giant tortoise on St Helena who hatched around 1832, is thought to be the oldest known living land animal.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «tortoise» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.