food chain
2
2.4
- noun
- /fuːd tʃeɪn/
:
cadena de suministro de alimentos
- Understanding the food chain is essential for studying ecosystems and how energy flows through them.
Examples
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And a few millennia ago, the food system or the food chain was pretty straightforward.
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Of course, if all the local food chains go the same way, you get the same problems.
Blog text (27) -
If you follow the food chain back from those shrink-wrapped packages of meat, you find a very different reality.
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Well, given the the massive size of Walmart and their buying power and how much of the the food chain they can affect, this is a big thing.
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Choices at fast-food chains typically consist of high-calorie foods served in large portions.
Academic text (2010) -
The major source of PCBs is environmental, with over 90% of human exposure through the food chain. PCB exposure in infants is predominantly via breast milk, but limited evidence exists of significant toxicity associated with this mode of transmission.
Academic text (2010) -
The food chain illustrates how plants are consumed by herbivores, which are then eaten by carnivores.
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In biology class, we learned about the food chain and the role of each organism within it.
How Complex
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'chain' denotes a series or linked sequence and 'food' restricts that series to the domain of food, so 'food chain' naturally means a sequence relating to food (e.g., ecological levels or the sequence from producers to consumers). This noun–noun compounding is cross-linguistically common and follows standard English patterns, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will very likely infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Food chain uses the same chain picture for people and places: farmers, factories and shops are like links that pass food from one to the next. So it means 'the system that moves food from producers to consumers'.