trireme
part of speech
noun (a trireme, triremes)
meaning for a pupil
1) A trireme was a long, fast wooden warship of ancient Greece, Phoenicia and Rome, rowed by about 170 men sitting in three rows, one above another. tree →
2) It had a bronze ram at the front for smashing into enemy ships, and a sail for when the wind was good. tree →
sense in the lessons
In history lessons on ancient Greece and Rome, the trireme comes up with the Battle of Salamis (480 BC), when Athenian triremes beat the much bigger Persian fleet; it tells the reader about sea power, teamwork and rowing. «Tri-» means three (as in triangle, tricycle) and «-reme» comes from the Latin for oar, so the word itself says «three rows of oars». Phrases: «a fleet of triremes», «rowers in a trireme», «ramming speed».
examples
- The Athenians built two hundred triremes to fight the Persians. tree →
- A trireme needed about 170 rowers working together. tree →
- The trireme's bronze ram could punch a hole in an enemy ship. tree →
- In our history book there is a drawing of a trireme with three rows of oars. tree →
- The rowers in a trireme had to keep time to the beat of a flute. tree →
- A model trireme stands in the museum near the Greek vases. tree →
- We made a trireme out of cardboard and lollipop sticks for our project. tree →
note
Plural: triremes. Countable. It is a history word: there are no triremes today, except a modern copy called the Olympias, built in Greece in the 1980s. Myth: rowers were usually paid free citizens in Athens, not chained slaves as in films. Do not confuse «trireme» with «bireme» (two rows of oars). In maths problems, «three rows» and about 170 rowers are the useful numbers.
In the corpora
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «trireme» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.