calms

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of calm.

   Soft music calms the baby almost instantly.

   She breathes slowly until the steady rhythm calms her racing heart.

   Note

   Because the verb calm works in both directions, so does this form. Something calms a person or animal, as music calms a baby. Something can also calm by itself, as wind or water does when it settles: the sea calms by evening. Only the context and the presence of an object tell the two apart. The same spelling also serves as the noun plural, as in the long calms of a windless sea.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of calm.

   Sailors dreaded the long calms that stranded their ships under a windless sky.

   The diary recorded sudden squalls and the uneasy calms that followed them.

   Note

   Only the countable side of the noun takes a plural. You can have one calm or several calms, each a separate stretch of stillness, most often a windless spell at sea. When calm names a general state of peace, it stays uncountable: people keep their calm, not their calms. The same letters can also be the plural of the initialism for café au lait macule.

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