calves

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of calf.

   Two newborn calves stayed close to their mothers in the pasture.

   The runner stretched her calves carefully before the race began.

   Note

   A plural built by the old f-to-v shift also heard in leaf/leaves and hoof/hooves, where the final f becomes voiced before the plural ending. The one form covers young cattle, the young of whales, elephants, seals and giraffes, and even masses of ice broken from a glacier. In a polar report, then, calves may be ice rather than animals.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of calve.

   Every spring the oldest cow in the herd calves before the others.

   The ice shelf calves icebergs that drift north for months.

   Note

   The verb works with or without an object: a cow calves, or calves a heifer; an ice shelf calves, or calves icebergs. Less expected is the farmhand who calves, meaning one who helps a cow through the birth, so the person rather than the animal is the subject. The spelling matches the plural noun, so the sentence's grammar tells you which one you have.

   On the night shift she calves three heifers before dawn.

   When the shelf warms, it calves without warning.

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