chains

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of chain.

   Workers fastened the cargo with thick steel chains before the truck left.

   Several supermarket chains opened new stores in the same district.

   Note

   A regular plural that serves every meaning of chain alike: steel links lashing cargo, supermarket groups under one brand, the chains of atoms that build a molecule, and the linked measuring chains of known length. The same spelling is also the present-tense verb (she chains the gate shut). A determiner or number in front, as in the chains or two chains, marks the noun.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of chain.

   The dock crew chains each container to the deck before the ship sails.

   The landlord chains the back gate every night to keep out trespassers.

   Note

   Here the -s marks a singular subject in the present: the crew chains, she chains, it chains. Most uses take an object and often a to-phrase naming what it is fastened to, as in chains the bike to a railing. The figurative uses keep that shape: debt chains him to the job. Only the linking sense can stand without an object, as when each step chains onto the next.

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