covers

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of cover.

   The mattress covers needed washing after the long camping trip.

   Replacement covers for the patio chairs arrived a week late.

   Note

   A regular plural, but not every sense of cover takes it. The screening sense, meaning the shelter that hides someone from view, is uncountable, so people take cover rather than covers. The countable senses pluralize freely: book covers, sofa covers, lids. The same spelling also serves as the present-tense verb, as in she covers the dish, so context decides which one a reader is looking at.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of cover.

   The new policy covers every employee hired before March.

   A tarp covers the woodpile through the rainy season.

   Note

   Almost always transitive: something covers something else, whether a tarp over a woodpile or a cloth hiding what lies beneath. One older use stands without an object. A man who covers puts his hat back on, and that use now sounds dated. In current English, expect an object after covers.

3. 3
   nounplural

   The sheets, blankets, and other bedclothes on a bed, taken together.

   On cold mornings she burrowed deeper under the covers.

   The hotel left a chocolate on the pillow and folded the covers back neatly.

   Similarbedclothes, blankets, bedding, sheets

   Note

   A plural-only noun: the covers are the whole layered bedding at once, and one blanket on its own is not "a cover" in this sense. It takes plural agreement (the covers were warm) and lives most comfortably in phrases of movement and position: get under the covers, pull the covers up, throw the covers back.

4. 4
   nounplural

   In cricket, the area of the field near the cover and extra cover fielding positions.

   A crisp shot raced through the covers before anyone could react.

   She fields well in the covers, cutting off sharp drives on the off side.

   Note

   Cricket uses the plural for a stretch of ground rather than a single fielder. Cover and extra cover are fielding positions on the off side, and the covers is the region around them. A drive there goes "through the covers", and a fielder posted there fields "in the covers", nearly always with the article. Like the bedclothes, it is used only in the plural.

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