crafts

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of craft.

   Weaving and pottery are among the oldest crafts known to humanity.

   The fair celebrated regional crafts passed down through generations.

   Note

   Only some meanings of craft can take this plural. Where craft names a skill, a cunning ploy or a handmade object, it can be counted: the crafts of weaving and pottery, a schemer's crafts and wiles. The old sense of "strength" or "might" was uncountable and never had this plural. Crafts therefore always points to skills, tricks or things, never to force.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of craft.

   The author crafts each sentence with painstaking care.

   Her team crafts a fresh strategy for every new client.

   Note

   This form shares its spelling with the noun plural, so the sentence decides which one you are reading: she crafts a vase, but the fair's crafts. The verb now reaches well beyond handwork. It covers building something abstract with a maker's care, such as a sentence or a strategy. In games it means combining items, such as armor or medicine, into something new.

   In the game, a player crafts a healing potion from gathered herbs.

   Each evening he crafts a new set of arrows from scavenged wood.

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