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to watch a movie

to watch a movie

65 1.0
See a film for fun
  • phrasal verb
  • /wɑtʃ ə ˈmuvi/
translation icon : ver una película
  • After a long week, I decided to watch a movie to relax.

And I'll ask them, well, OK, would you watch a movie that's made by AI?

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Examples

Antonyms

1.0

To stay away from something or not do it to stop something bad from happening

281 1.1

To not experience something bad that others have

How Long

to binge-watch
  • Texting
6 3.9
to watch a movie
65 1.0

Surface Forms

watch infinitive
watching present participle
watches third person singular
watched past
watched past participle

Morphology

watch + a + movie

The meaning 'to view a film' is directly and transparently derived from the constituents 'watch' (to view attentively) + 'a' (indefinite article) + 'movie' (film). This simple verb + noun construction follows a common compositional pattern found across languages, so a B1 learner who knows the words will readily infer the MWE meaning.

Etymology

Watch a movie comes from early movie theaters where people sat and looked at 'moving pictures' on a big screen. Watch means to look and movie is short for 'moving picture', so the phrase means 'to view a film', usually for entertainment.