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# ply

«ply» in Mova's school dictionary: **to keep giving them food or drink, often more than they want** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

### part of speech

verb (plies, plying, plied)

### meaning for a pupil

1) To ply someone with something is to keep giving them food or drink, often more than they want. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/ply/#m1)

2) (old use) To ply a trade or tool is to work at it steadily. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/ply/#m2)

### sense in the lessons

in stories a host keeps pressing a guest to drink, so that the guest is made foolish or unable to leave

### examples

- The merchant seated him at table and began plying him with brandy. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/ply/#x1)
- He kept plying the guest with cakes and tea. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/ply/#x2)
- The old sailor plied his trade by the harbour for forty years. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/ply/#x3)

### note

nothing for maths

### Trees and pragmatics

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