blows

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular present of blow.

   A cold breeze blows in from the sea each evening.

   The referee blows the whistle to start the match.

   Note

   The -s form serves blow's transitive and intransitive uses alike: the wind blows, but a glassmaker blows a vase and a child blows a feather across the table. It pairs only with a singular third-person subject, such as he, she, it or a singular noun. Plural, first-person and second-person subjects take bare blow. Whether an object follows tells you which use is in play.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of blow.

   A series of crushing blows brought the old wall down.

   The team absorbed repeated financial blows before recovering.

   Note

   Among the meanings of blow, the countable ones take this plural: strong winds, or short breathers snatched between efforts. The slang uses for cocaine, cannabis and heroin are uncountable, so blows does not stand for several doses of a drug. The same spelling is also the present-tense verb (the wind blows), and only the surrounding sentence shows which one is meant.

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