twin

«twin» in Mova's school dictionary: one of two children born to the same mother at the same time — 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 twin, twins); adjective (twin beds, twin towns); verb (twin, twinned — of towns, British)

meaning for a pupil

1) A twin is one of two children born to the same mother at the same time. tree →

2) Twin can mean one of a pair of two things that are the same or very alike. tree →

3) In British use, two towns are twinned when they are friends and partners with a town in another country. tree →

sense in the lessons

In science lessons, identical twins come from one egg and share the same genes; non-identical (fraternal) twins come from two eggs and can be a boy and a girl. In everyday life, «twin beds» are two single beds; «twin towns» exchange visits. In maths problems, twins have the same age. Phrases: «identical twins», «twin brother», «twin sister», «twin beds», «twin town».

examples

• Emma and Ella are twins. tree →
• My twin brother is ten minutes older than me. tree →
• Identical twins can look almost exactly the same. tree →
• The hotel room had twin beds. tree →
• Our town is twinned with a town in France. tree →
• The twins are 9, so together their ages add up to 18. tree →
• The plane has twin engines. tree →
• The first twin came to Peter. “Father, we want to dance.” tree →

note

Countable noun: «a twin», «twins». Twins always have the same age (in maths, same age, born the same day). «Identical» twins are always the same sex; «fraternal» twins may be different. Triplets are three, quadruplets four.

In the corpora

• Twins are two babies from one pregnancy; identical twins come from one egg that split, so they look alike.
• Tamarins and marmosets usually have twins, and the father and older brothers and sisters carry the babies most of the time.
• Ueno Zoo in Tokyo opened in 1882 and is Japan's oldest zoo; giant panda twins born there in 2021 drew huge crowds.
• The girl picks out the soft eyes of the twin nut «with her little golden scissors».
• Twins Mia and Maya in Toronto swapped hoodies to confuse the teacher.

Trees and pragmatics

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