Meaning & use
rainforest
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Meanings
nouncountable
A thick, wet forest, usually in a hot tropical region, where a lot of rain falls all year.
Grammar: Countable: you can say a rainforest, the rainforest, or rainforests.
Patterns
- a tropical rainforest
- the rainforest is destroyed
- live in the rainforest
The Amazon rainforest is home to millions of species.
Large areas of rainforest are cut down every year.
We hiked through a steamy rainforest in Borneo.
noununcountabletechnical
This type of environment as a habitat or ecosystem, especially when talking about conservation.
Grammar: Used without 'a' or a plural when talking about the habitat in general.
Patterns
- protect the rainforest
- rainforest destruction
- rainforest species
Scientists warn that rainforest is disappearing faster than ever.
Many medicines originally came from plants found in rainforest.
The charity works to protect rainforest in South America.
Word forms
| plural | rainforests |
|---|
Common combinations
- tropical rainforest
- Tropical rainforest covers much of the island.
- rainforest canopy
- Monkeys leap through the rainforest canopy.
- rainforest destruction
- Rainforest destruction threatens thousands of species.
- old-growth rainforest
- The old-growth rainforest has never been logged.
- rainforest floor
- Little sunlight reaches the rainforest floor.
Synonyms and how they differ
- jungle
- Jungle is more informal and suggests dense, tangled plants; rainforest is the scientific and neutral term.
- woods
- Woods are much smaller and drier, and never used for tropical wet forests.
Opposites
Word family
- rainforest canopy noun
- The upper layer of branches and leaves in a rainforest.
Commonly confused: rainforest or jungle?
rainforest vs jungle
Learners often use jungle for any tropical forest, but rainforest is the precise word for very wet forests, while jungle often implies thick, almost impassable growth.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'rainforest' correctly?
Choose one answer.
Rainforests are wet, so 'receives rain almost every day' fits. Pine forests in Norway are not rainforests, and rainforests are wet and species-rich, not dry.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “rainforest”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.