to write on
- phrasal verb
- /raɪt ɑn/
- Brian McHale, among others, has written on the shift from modern to postmodern poetics, saying,
- write on the subject
- write on the topic
- Much has been written on
Made me feel at peace in my life because of what you wrote on a page.
- Made me feel at peace in my life because of what you wrote on a page.
- But in any case, you, you, you, you have to write on a schedule.
- And so I put this thing up online that I'd written on my phone on multiple subway rides.
- But I guess these days a lot of people just like write on their phones or dive on their computers.
Examples
-
He was asked to write on various historical events for the school project.
-
The journalist has decided to write on the impact of climate change on coastal cities.
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Nearly everyone who has written on the subject has proposed a definition of critical thinking.
Academic text (1991) -
Everything that I could not publish in my newspaper, I wrote on my blog.
Academic text (2008) -
But Dreze, as well as most others writing on the topic, does exactly this.
Academic text (1992) -
"Nice for you," Martha said sharply and continued to write on a pad at the table.
Fiction book (1997) -
Beforehand, students should have written on index cards the questions that they want to ask.
Academic text (1993) -
Content analysis was used to examine the open-ended comments written on the surveys.
Academic text (2013) -
For example, my friend Aaron Kotmar wrote on paraconsistent merriology.
-
In her upcoming essay, she will write on the importance of mental health awareness.
Synonyms
Give details in words about a topic, for example in a book or article
How Detailed
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'compose written work about a particular subject' is directly derivable from 'write' (to produce text) plus the preposition 'on' marking topic or subject; this parallels the common English pattern 'write on/about'. Because this composition is cross-linguistically common and follows standard preposition+verb logic, a B1 learner who knows the constituents will readily infer the meaning.
Etymology
Write on comes from a simple picture: to write words on a page about a topic, like jotting notes on a book. So, to write on something means to make a text 'about' that subject.