wire

«wire» in Mova's school dictionary: a long thin piece of metal that can bend — 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 (wire, wires); verb (wire, wires, wired, wiring)

meaning for a pupil

1) A wire is a long thin piece of metal that can bend. tree →

2) An electric wire carries electricity, often inside a plastic cover. tree →

3) To wire something is to put in wires for electricity. tree →

4) «Wired» in speech can mean very excited and awake. tree →

sense in the lessons

In school maths: a length cut into equal pieces or bent into a shape (the wire's length is the perimeter). In science: wires in an electric circuit carry current from the battery to the bulb; copper wire conducts electricity, plastic covers insulate. In everyday life: a wire fence, a coat hanger, phone cables. Phrases: «electric wire», «wire fence», «barbed wire», «down to the wire» (until the very end).

examples

• She has 60 cm of wire. tree →
• He cut the wire into 5 equal pieces. tree →
• A square is made from 40 cm of wire. How long is each side? tree →
• Each fence needs 20 meters of wire. tree →
• Connect the bulb to the battery with two wires. tree →
• The wire is covered in plastic to keep us safe. tree →
• The cows stay inside the wire fence. tree →
• The race went right down to the wire. tree →
• Instead of ropes it had wires for rigging, and musicians played on them with fiddle bows and made lovely music. tree →

note

Countable for pieces («a wire»), uncountable for the material («some wire», «a roll of wire»). Maths: cutting into equal pieces divides; bending wire into a shape — the wire's length is the perimeter. Safety: never touch wires that come out of a wall or a broken plug.

In the corpora

• Wires can hold actors up safely, and the wires are removed later by computer.
• The smell is «the fine filament, the telegraphic current» (a thin thread, like a telegraph wire's signal).
• Metals pass heat along very well, and electricity too, which is why wires are copper inside their plastic coat.
• "Live wire" means a very energetic, hyperactive child (one so full of energy that he cannot keep still).
• Plastic and rubber do not let electricity flow easily, so they are used to cover wires.

Trees and pragmatics

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