drags

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of drag.

   The tugboat drags the heavy barge upstream against the current.

   A loose chain drags behind the truck and throws up sparks.

   Note

   A regular present-tense form: he, she or it drags, while I, you, we and they drag. It covers both halves of the verb. Used transitively, it takes an object, as when a tug drags a barge or a user drags a file into a folder. Used intransitively, it needs none, and a slow afternoon or a long speech simply drags.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of drag.

   She allowed herself only a few drags before stubbing out the cigarette.

   Long layovers are among the worst drags of international travel.

   Note

   The plural belongs only to the countable uses of the noun. Resistance of a fluid is a mass noun, so engineers speak of the drag on a hull, never its drags. The plural turns up for things that can be counted: devices hauled along a riverbed, police searches, the bottom parts of sand-casting molds, double drum-strokes. The same spelling also serves as the present-tense verb, so the surrounding sentence decides which one is meant.

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