trick

«trick» in Mova's school dictionary: Something done to fool or cheat someone — 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 trick, tricks); verb (trick, tricks, tricked, tricking); adjective (a trick question)

meaning for a pupil

1) Something done to fool or cheat someone. tree →

2) A clever or funny action that needs skill: a magic trick, a skateboard trick. tree →

3) A clever way of doing something: a trick for remembering. tree →

4) A joke played on someone: play a trick on. tree →

5) Verb: to make someone believe something false. tree →

sense in the lessons

In truth and safety lessons: tricky people use tricks to get children to go with them (asking for help with a lost puppy, offering sweets) — say no and tell an adult; online tricks ask for passwords. In stories tricks are played by clever characters (fox, Anansi). In maths: a trick question has a catch; tricks help mental maths (to multiply by 10 add a zero). Phrases: play a trick on, trick or treat, magic trick, do the trick, trick question, tricky.

examples

• He did a magic trick with a coin. tree →
• The fox tricked the crow into dropping the cheese. tree →
• It was a trick question! tree →
• We went trick-or-treating on Halloween. tree →
• A stranger might use a trick like «help me find my puppy» — say no and tell an adult. tree →
• My dog can do tricks. tree →
• Here's a trick to remember the planets. tree →
• A cold flannel did the trick. tree →
• So the Farmer hit on a trick. tree →

note

Regular verb: tricked. «Tricky» means difficult or full of tricks. «Do the trick» = solve the problem. A trick is fun only when nobody is hurt or fooled about something important.

In the corpora

• Parental controls are there for good reasons; talk about them rather than trying to trick them.
• Think: could this be fake, a trick or a joke that hurts someone?
• A message saying your account will be deleted unless you log in through a link is phishing, a trick to steal your login.
• Real games never ask for your password; "free coins for your login" is a trick to steal accounts.
• It looked like a photo, and that was the whole trick.

Trees and pragmatics

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