Meaning & use
temperate rainforest
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountabletechnical
A dense forest in a cool, mild region that gets a great deal of rain every year, often with huge trees, moss and ferns.
Grammar: Takes an article: a temperate rainforest, the temperate rainforest.
Patterns
- a temperate rainforest in somewhere
The temperate rainforest on the coast gets more than three meters of rain a year.
Moss hangs from every branch of the temperate rainforest.
Few visitors realize that Alaska has a temperate rainforest.
Word forms
| plural | temperate rainforests |
|---|
Common combinations
- coastal temperate rainforest
- The coastal temperate rainforest sits between the ocean and the mountains.
- protect a temperate rainforest
- Groups work to protect the last temperate rainforest in the valley.
- ancient temperate rainforest
- This ancient temperate rainforest has trees over a thousand years old.
- walk through a temperate rainforest
- We walked through a temperate rainforest in the drizzle.
Synonyms and how they differ
- cool rainforest
- Cool rainforest is a rarer informal alternative that stresses lower temperatures, but it is not the usual science term.
- coastal rainforest
- Coastal rainforest focuses on location near the sea, whereas temperate rainforest focuses on the climate zone.
- tropical rainforest
- Tropical rainforest is the opposite kind, found in hot regions near the equator, not a synonym.
Opposites
Word family
- rainforest noun
- a dense forest in a very wet area
- temperate adjective
- mild, neither very hot nor very cold
- deforestation noun
- clearing of forests
- canopy noun
- the upper layer of the trees
Commonly confused: temperate rainforest or tropical rainforest?
temperate rainforest vs tropical rainforest
A tropical rainforest is warm all year with huge variety of species, while a temperate rainforest is cooler and has fewer kinds of tree.
Practice
Moss-covered giant trees and cool, wet weather are typical of a ______ on the Pacific coast.
Choose one answer.
A temperate rainforest is a cool, very wet forest. A savanna is a dry grassland, so it does not match the description.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “temperate rainforest”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.