claims

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of claim.

   Investigators found that several of the claims could not be verified.

   Prospectors filed competing claims on the same stretch of riverbank.

   Note

   The plural gathers every countable kind of claim: demands of ownership, the things demanded, assertions still awaiting proof, stakes on unowned land, and legal demands for damages. The surrounding words usually settle which one is meant. Claims that could not be verified are assertions, and claims filed on a riverbank are land. The same spelling also serves as the present-tense verb form, so the claims and she claims are different words.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of claim.

   The report claims that emissions fell sharply over the past decade.

   He claims ownership of the patent despite the lawsuit.

   Note

   The -s ending appears only after a singular third-person subject, as in the report claims or she claims. I, you, we and they take bare claim. The form carries every sense of the verb. It can introduce an assertion (claims that emissions fell) or take an object of ownership (claims the patent). It also has a grimmer sense of causing loss, as when an accident claims lives.

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