barbers

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of barber.

   Several barbers competed for customers along the busy street.

   The barbers shared a single pair of scissors during the shortage.

   Note

   One spelling covers every noun sense of barber. Besides the people who cut hair and beards, barbers can be barber surgeons, foot soldiers who treated battlefield wounds. In Canada they can also be storms of driving sea-ice spicules on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, named for the way the ice cuts. Capitalized, the Barbers is a family bearing the occupational surname. The same form also serves as the present-tense verb.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of barber.

   The old man still barbers his neighbors for a small fee.

   Each morning she barbers the first client before the shop fills up.

   Note

   Two different verbs share this form, and an object tells them apart. With a person as its object, it means cutting that person's hair or beard: he barbers the regulars before noon. Without an object, it is US slang for chattering or talking, so a man who barbers all afternoon may never pick up the scissors. The slang use belongs to casual speech and is best kept out of formal writing.

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