half gainer
1
9.0
- noun
- /hæf ˈɡeɪnər/
- Specialized
:
medio gainer
- "I know it's hard to believe, but before I did my half gainer with a full twist down those stairs, I was a fairly decent runner."
- doing a half gainer
Examples
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Matisse just did a half-gainer!
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You should've seen it, my half gainer was a definite 10.
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Old Shred did a swan dive with a half gainer... ...right into the back of a garbage truck.
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The diver executed a perfect half gainer and landed gracefully in the pool.
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During the competition, she impressed the judges with her half gainer from the high board.
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He practiced his half gainer daily to improve his diving skills for the upcoming event.
How Difficult
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derived from combining 'half' (indicating a half rotation) with 'gainer' (a backward somersault dive), so it straightforwardly denotes a gainer with a half rotation. This numeric modifier + noun composition is transparent and predictable, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents can infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
The dive name half gainer shows the move: the diver goes forward, kicks the legs up and makes a half backward flip so they enter the water facing the board. So half means the half turn and gainer is the kind of flip done while moving forward, which is why the phrase means 'a dive where the diver faces the board on entry'.