Englishfor English speakers
adoption
Noun
—
An act of adopting a child by different parents so that the child becomes one of their own.
The dog was available for adoption, so I decided to take it.
of
Preposition
—
Made using.
It is a house of cards.
a
Determinative
—
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".
—
In some schools, an A is a very high grade.
Ron got an A on his earth science test.
law
Noun
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Laws are the official rules of a government or organisation.
We have defined crime as behaviour which breaks the criminal law.
We believe that this law is wrong and we are not prepared to obey such a law.
The Kyoto treaty became law in 2005.
—
The law is the police.
—
A law is something that is always true.
—
Law is the study of laws.
by
Preposition
—
near or next to.
The mailbox is by the bus stop.
—
at some time before (the given time).
Be back by ten o'clock!
—
if something is done by somebody, it is done through their action
The matter was decided by the chairman.
The boat was swamped by the water.
He was protected by his body armour.
—
if something is created by somebody, they are the creator, author, etc.
There are many well-known plays by William Shakespeare.
—
shows how someone does something
I avoided the guards by moving only when they weren't looking.
—
using the rules or logic of.
I sorted the items by category.
—
with a change of. In this case, by shows how much something has changed.
Our stock is up by ten percent.
—
shows how slowly, or how quickly, someone does something (used in the form "X by X" or "by Xs")
We went through the book page by page.
We crawled forward by inches.
—
If you multiply mathx/math by mathy/math, you multiply mathx/math × mathy/math.
Five multiplied by seven is 35.
—
If you divide mathx/math by mathy/math, you find how many mathy/maths are in mathx/math.
35 divided by seven is five.
vote
Noun
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A vote is a formal way of things that are controlled by the majority.
Let's take a vote for a new president!
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A vote is the decision of one person in an election.
I give my vote for the bill.
vote
Verb
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If you vote, you show your support for choosing a person or idea by raising your hand, marking a piece of paper, etc
My brother votes for the Democrats.
I voted to oppose the new property tax.