coasts

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of coast.

   The eastern and western coasts have very different climates.

   Heavy storms battered both coasts throughout the winter.

   Note

   A regular plural with a trap for readers of older English. Today coasts are shorelines: the eastern and western coasts, both coasts of a continent. But coast once also meant the side or edge of something, or a whole region or district. In an old text, coasts may therefore be territories rather than seashores. The same spelling serves the verb form, which is about gliding, not geography.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of coast.

   The car coasts to a stop once he lifts his foot off the gas.

   She coasts effortlessly through every meeting without preparing.

   Note

   The verb form that goes with he, she or it, and it shares its spelling with the plural noun for shorelines. Context tells them apart: a car coasts downhill, but a country has long coasts. In current use the verb takes no object, as in coasting to a stop or coasting through school. The transitive uses, meaning to sail along a coastline or to conduct something along a bank, are obsolete.

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