dates

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of date.

   Historians still debate the exact dates of the ancient battles.

   She filled the bowl with dried dates and figs for the table.

   Note

   One plural serves two very different nouns: the sweet fruit of the date palm and the points on a calendar. Dried dates in a bowl and the dates of a battle are spelled and pronounced alike, so only context separates them. The same spelling is also the present-tense verb form, as in she dates each entry, which makes this a word to read in its full sentence.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of date.

   The archaeologist dates the pottery by measuring its carbon content.

   She dates each journal entry in the top corner of the page.

   Note

   A verb form that almost always takes an object. Someone dates a letter, an event, a pot or a person. When a couple is romantically involved with each other, the subject is plural and the verb loses its -s: they date. With a singular subject, the romantic meaning needs a partner named after the verb: she dates a musician. The calendar sense of the shared spelling is covered under the plural noun.

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