ants

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of ant.

   A colony of ants can move surprising amounts of soil in a single season.

   The gardener watched the ants stream up the trunk of the apple tree.

   Note

   A regular plural: add -s and nothing else changes. It covers more than insects. On the Internet a web spider is also called an ant, so a fleet of crawlers can be ants too. The same spelling serves the feather-rubbing verb, and word order tells them apart: after the or a number it names the creatures (the ants swarm), but after a singular subject it is an action (the starling ants).

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of ant.

   The starling ants among the anthills to rid its feathers of parasites.

   A crow sometimes ants by crushing insects in its beak and wiping them along its wing feathers.

   Note

   Here the bird does the acting and the insects are its tools. A starling or crow that ants is rubbing insects, usually ants, along its feathers, perhaps to fight parasites. The verb takes a singular subject and stands without an object, followed instead by a place or a manner: it ants among the anthills, it ants by crushing insects in its beak.

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