Englishfor English speakers
pluck
Verb
—
If you pluck something from somewhere, you remove it with a quick movement.
She plucked the phone from her bag and dialed.
The girl bent down to pluck a rose.
Please, pluck this chicken for me.
—
If you pluck a guitar, violin etc., you pull a single string and then let it go to make a sound.
She picked up her guitar and plucked it idly.
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!
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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.
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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.
the
Determiner
—
Used, instead of a, to reference something specific, already known to exist.
Compare "I read a book." and "I read the book."
—
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.
beard
Noun
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A beard is hair that grows on a man's face.
After living in the woods for three months, Tom had grown a big, bushy beard
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Hair on the face of some animals, such as a goat's beard.
—
A woman who goes on a date with a gay male so that others will think that he is heterosexual.