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MAY
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
Irregular inflected form: might
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Thorny Eurasian shrub of small tree having dense clusters of white to scarlet flowers followed by deep red berries; established as an escape in eastern North America
Synonyms:
Crataegus laevigata; Crataegus oxycantha; English hawthorn; may; whitethorn
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("may" is a kind of...):
haw; hawthorn (a spring-flowering shrub or small tree of the genus Crataegus)
Holonyms ("may" is a member of...):
Crataegus; genus Crataegus (thorny shrubs and small trees: hawthorn; thorn; thorn apple)
Sense 2
Meaning:
The month following April and preceding June
Classified under:
Nouns denoting time and temporal relations
Hypernyms ("May" is a kind of...):
Gregorian calendar month (a month in the Gregorian calendar)
Meronyms (parts of "May"):
First of May; May 1; May Day (observed in many countries to celebrate the coming of spring; observed in Russia and related countries in honor of labor)
Mother's Day (second Sunday in May)
Armed Forces Day (the 3rd Saturday in May)
Decoration Day; Memorial Day (legal holiday in the United States, last Monday in May; commemorates the members of the United States armed forces who were killed in war)
Commonwealth Day; Empire day; May 24 (British, anniversary of Queen Victoria's birth)
mid-May (the middle part of May)
Holonyms ("May" is a part of...):
Gregorian calendar; New Style calendar (the solar calendar now in general use, introduced by Gregory XIII in 1582 to correct an error in the Julian calendar by suppressing 10 days, making Oct 5 be called Oct 15, and providing that only centenary years divisible by 400 should be leap years; it was adopted by Great Britain and the American colonies in 1752)
Context examples:
“Quite as comfortable as we can expect a young mother to be, under these melancholy domestic circumstances. There cannot be any objection to your seeing her presently, ma'am. It may do her good.”
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
It may interest you to know that I succeeded in shooting that particular specimen.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Will you please signal it, then, so that I may be put ashore.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
I asked him to explain more fully, so that I might not by any chance mislead him, so he said:— I shall illustrate.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
Or, as chance might have it, he would lie farther away, to the side or rear, watching the outlines of the man and the occasional movements of his body.
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
But if that be so, we may step into the court and take a look at the windows.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
Can you ask me, then, whether I am ready to look into any new problem, however trivial it may prove?
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Old Pew, as had lost his sight, and might have thought shame, spends twelve hundred pound in a year, like a lord in Parliament.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
You may have many friends, you who read this, and you may chance to marry more than once, but your mother is your first and your last.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
“May He make your heart as glad as you have made mine!”
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
