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# piranha

«piranha» in Mova's school dictionary: **a South American river fish with very sharp…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 2 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

noun (a piranha, piranhas)

### meaning for a pupil

1) A piranha is a South American river fish with very sharp, triangle-shaped teeth that eats meat as well as plants and fruit. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/piranha/#m1)

2) (informal) A piranha can describe a fierce, greedy person who attacks others to get what they want. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/piranha/#m2)

### sense in the lessons

In science and geography lessons about the Amazon river, piranhas show food chains: they eat fish, insects, seeds and dead animals, and are eaten by river dolphins, caimans and birds. They swim in groups. Films show them as man-eaters, but real attacks on people are rare and usually just bites. Phrases: «a shoal of piranhas», «razor-sharp teeth», «a feeding frenzy».

### examples

- Piranhas live in the Amazon River. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/piranha/#x1)
- A piranha's teeth fit together like scissors. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/piranha/#x2)
- The fishermen pulled a piranha out of the river. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/piranha/#x3)
- Piranhas usually swim in shoals for safety. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/piranha/#x4)
- Some piranhas eat mostly seeds and fruit. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/piranha/#x5)
- In the film the piranhas ate everything in seconds, but that is not true to life. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/piranha/#x6)
- The reporters were like piranhas, all shouting questions at once. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/piranha/#x7)

### note

Plural «piranhas». Say pi-RAH-na (some say pi-RAN-ya). Myth: piranhas do not usually strip people to the bone; that idea comes from films and old stories.

### In the corpora

- [Piranhas have razor-sharp teeth and tear at dead or injured fish, but most are timid scavengers that shoal for safety.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/155-the-amazon-river/9/)
- [When hunters killed most black caimans, piranhas grew in number, because caimans had been eating them.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/158-amazon-giants-and-tall-tales/8/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «piranha» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/piranha/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.