Englishfor English speakers
a
Determinative
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A is used when the following word could be any of a certain type.
Compare "A book I saw on the shelf" and "The book I gave you yesterday".
a
Noun
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A is the first letter of the alphabet.
The letter "a" comes before "b".
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In some schools, an A is a very high grade.
Ron got an A on his earth science test.
piece
Noun
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A piece is a part of something that can be or has been separated from it.
The man cut a piece of meat and a piece of cake for dinner.
I own a piece of land in the country.
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A piece is one example of a class or set of things.
He put a piece of wood on the fire.
Can I have a piece of paper to write on?
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A piece is something that is made by an artist.
The piece of music was beautiful.
I thought his earlier pieces were more creative than his more recent stuff.
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In board games, a piece is an object that can be moved to mark your position.
There are six types of chess pieces in the game of chess: the pawn, the knight, the bishop, the rook, the queen, and the king.
piece
Verb
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If you piece something together, you use bring together enough information to understand something.
They gathered enough information to piece together the family history.
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If you piece something together, you put the pieces together.
The scientists moved their shop to an empty parking lot to piece together all the bones.
of
Preposition
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Made using.
It is a house of cards.
the
Determiner
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Used, instead of a, to reference something specific, already known to exist.
Compare "I read a book." and "I read the book."
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Used with a stress, to show that the word following is special.
Are you the John Smith that I went to school with?
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Used with an adjective that acts like a noun to mean all of the people concerned
The poor are always with us.
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Used with superlatives forms of adjectives and adverbs.
You are the best.
action
Noun
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An action is something that you do, or something that happens, especially with motion.
At 3am, just west of the building, the plan was put into action.
There was a huge difference between my thoughts and my actions.
What they did was clearly wrong, but their actions were understandable.
The Health Authority is preparing to take legal action against the restaurants that fail to follow the regulations.