toy

«toy» in Mova's school dictionary: a thing children play with, like a doll, a ball, a teddy… — 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, verb (toy, toys, toyed, toying)

meaning for a pupil

1) A toy is a thing children play with, like a doll, a ball, a teddy or a toy car. tree →

2) Toy can describe a small model of a real thing: a toy train. tree →

3) To toy with something is to play with it without much care or to think about an idea not very seriously. tree →

sense in the lessons

Maths: a thing counted, bought, sold, given and shared; the action word (gave, bought, sold, shared) tells the operation. Everyday: toy box, toy shop, soft toy, tidy up your toys. Safety: small toy parts are dangerous for babies.

examples

• Sam has 18 toys. tree →
• Each toy costs 4 dollars. tree →
• He gave 5 toys to his sister. tree →
• The shop sold 30 toys on Saturday. tree →
• Please put your toys back in the toy box. tree →
• We gave our old toys to the charity shop. tree →
• Keep small toys away from the baby. tree →
• She toyed with her food because she wasn't hungry. tree →
• Then the toys began to play at visiting, dancing, and fighting. tree →

note

Countable: a toy, toys (not «toies»). The thing counted; the action word (gave, bought, sold, shared) tells the operation. Trap: none.

In the corpora

• Some toys have AI chatbots inside; a talking toy is still a toy, not a friend who lives in it.
• Think of a toy train set next to a real railway.
• Toy Story, made by Pixar in 1995, was the first full-length film made entirely by computer animation.
• Keepers sometimes spray perfume or spices in an enclosure, because new smells give cats something to explore, like a new toy.
• A Border collie called Chaser learned the names of over 1,000 toys.

Trees and pragmatics

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