Semantic Fields

Hello everyone!

In this post, we will be dealing with another way of studying the meaning of verbs. This is a very useful method to learn and to get involved in the quotidian aspect of English language; semantic fields.

A semantic field is a set of words grouped together by meaning referring to a specific subject. In this post, I will focus on certain verbs that are used in specific situations or places like in the kitchen.

There are some examples of them:

To chop: it means to cut food in small pieces (for example: I chopped the cucumber.)

To dice: it means to cut food in a squared way (for example: Can you grab some diced beef?)

To boil: it means to cook something in a water that is almost turning into gas due to its high temperature (for example: I think I’m going to have boiled eggs for supper).

To blend: it means to mix different types of food to get a different one (for example: I am going to blend bananas and juice to make a banana milkshake!).

To pour: it means to intentionally spill liquid on something (for example: can you pour the orange juice in this glass?).

To bone: it means to take bones out from any flesh or meat (for example: can you bone this pork for me?).

To grate: it means to turn food into small particles by rubbing it against a sharp and rough surface (for example: I am going to grate some cheese for the pasta).

To rinse: it means to wash food just with water (for example: She wants to rinse the meat before cooking it).

To roast: it means to cook something using the dry heat of the oven (for example: I love roast chicken!).

To roll out: it means to make the dough flat. (for example: he is flattening the dough to make the pizza).

To sharpen: it means to make something sharp (for example: these knives need to be sharpened).

To slice: it means to cut a thin and flat piece of something (for example: Do you want sliced bread?).

Now,to increase your list of verbs, you could look for verbs of some semantic fields. Ask me any doubt you may have.

Posted by: Francisco M. Alfonso Sánchez