watt

«watt» in Mova's school dictionary: The unit used to measure power: how fast energy is used… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a watt, watts); name (Watt)

meaning for a pupil

1) (science) The unit used to measure power: how fast energy is used or produced. One watt is one joule of energy every second. tree →

2) (a name) James Watt was a Scottish engineer who improved the steam engine; the unit is named after him. tree →

sense in the lessons

In science and energy lessons watts tell how powerful a device is: a light bulb might use 10 watts, a kettle 3,000 watts (3 kilowatts). Saving energy means choosing devices with fewer watts and switching them off. Electricity bills count kilowatt-hours. Phrases: a 60-watt bulb, kilowatt, megawatt, watts of power.

examples

• An LED bulb uses only about 10 watts. tree →
• The kettle uses 3,000 watts, or 3 kilowatts. tree →
• A watt is a unit of power. tree →
• The watt is named after James Watt. tree →
• Which uses more watts, the hairdryer or the phone charger? tree →
• The wind turbine makes two million watts, or two megawatts. tree →

note

Symbol W; 1 kilowatt (kW) = 1,000 watts; 1 megawatt (MW) = 1,000,000 watts. Homophone trap: watt sounds like "what". Maths: energy = power × time, so a 100-watt lamp on for 10 hours uses 1,000 watt-hours = 1 kilowatt-hour. Watts measure power, volts measure electrical push, amps measure current.

In the corpora

• James Watt greatly improved the steam engine; he did not invent it, as earlier steam engines already pumped water out of mines.

Trees and pragmatics

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