courts

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of court.

   The city built four new basketball courts in the riverside park.

   Appeals courts rarely overturn verdicts on such narrow grounds.

   Note

   One spelling does two jobs here. The same letters also make the verb form in "she courts danger," so the noun shows itself through a determiner or a number: the courts, four courts. Its meaning also depends on place. In Australia and the US, courts can be dead-end streets. In Hong Kong they can be housing estates or apartment developments. Elsewhere they are enclosed yards, palaces or a sovereign's retinue.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of court.

   The candidate courts voters in every small town she visits.

   He courts controversy with nearly every public statement.

   Note

   Every sense of the verb is transitive, so this -s form always takes an object, and the object decides the meaning. With a person, it means wooing or seeking an alliance. With a prize, it means pursuit. With a bad outcome, as in courts disaster or courts ruin, it means risk. In that last case the subject is not chasing the result, only inviting it by behaving carelessly.

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