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# tablespoon

«tablespoon» in Mova's school dictionary: **a large spoon used for serving food or for measuring in…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

noun (a tablespoon, tablespoons; short forms tbsp, T)

### meaning for a pupil

1) A tablespoon is a large spoon used for serving food or for measuring in cooking. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/tablespoon/#m1)

2) A tablespoon (tablespoonful) is the amount it holds, used as a measure in recipes. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/tablespoon/#m2)

### sense in the lessons

Maths and cooking: in the UK, Ireland, the USA and NZ a tablespoon is about 15 ml; in Australia it is 20 ml. 1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons (UK/US). Recipes write «tbsp» (tablespoon) and «tsp» (teaspoon) — mixing them up can ruin a cake. Measures are usually level, not heaped, unless the recipe says so. Health: medicine should be measured with the special spoon or syringe it comes with, not a kitchen spoon.

### examples

- Add two tablespoons of sugar. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/tablespoon/#x1)
- One tablespoon is the same as three teaspoons. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/tablespoon/#x2)
- Mum served the peas with a tablespoon. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/tablespoon/#x3)
- The recipe says 1 tbsp of oil. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/tablespoon/#x4)
- Use a level tablespoon of flour, not a heaped one. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/tablespoon/#x5)
- How many millilitres are in 4 tablespoons? (60 ml in the UK) [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/tablespoon/#x6)
- Don't confuse tbsp with tsp! [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/tablespoon/#x7)

### note

Countable, one word. Short forms: tbsp, Tbsp, T; teaspoon is tsp or t. Maths: 1 tbsp ≈ 15 ml (20 ml in Australia), so 2 tbsp ≈ 30 ml. Plural: tablespoons (or tablespoonfuls).

### In the corpora

- [A tablespoon holds about three teaspoons.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/190-saying-i-was-wrong-and-laughing-without-being-cruel/18/)

### Trees and pragmatics

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