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I have an assignment and one question confuses me a lot. the question is:
The words below have a literal as well as an extended meaning. Write the literal meaning of the words. Use the following words in sentences of your own using the ‘extended’ meaning.
- angry
- train
- mouth
What does "an extended meaning" mean? And how can I use extended meaning to form a sentence?
The website vocabulary.com says that extended means:
extended (adj.) beyond the literal or primary sense
So I suppose there are two ways a word could have an extended meaning:
As for your exercise, the word mouth seems easy. People have a mouth, and so od lions – but rivers have a mouth as well.
The mouth of the Rhine is at Hoek van Holland by the North Sea.
As for a word like angry, we only need to consult a good dictionary for ideas. From Wordnik:
angry (adj.)
- adj. Displaying or feeling anger.
- Inflamed and painful.
- Dark and stormy, menacing.
That third one looks like an extended meaning to me. So, we might say:
When Stella noticed the angry clouds, she called her children inside.
The word train has dozens of meanings, so it’s a little harder to figure out which ones are the “primary” definitions and which might the “extended” meanings. But I will say this about the noun train: a railroad yard has a train, but so does a wedding dress. Moreover, about the verb train: a woman might train a dolphin, but she also might train her hair.
The use of extended is odd. Without more context, I would guess that what the assignment is talking about is a figurative meaning. (In contrast to literal.)
For instance, the words are not being used in a literal sense in the following sentences:
It was an angry wound.
They got on board the pity train.
She was at the mouth of madness.
