endorses

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of endorse.

   The newspaper formally endorses one candidate ahead of each election.

   A board member who endorses the merger must declare any conflict of interest.

   Note

   The form that agrees with a singular subject (she endorses, the board endorses), while bare endorse serves every other person and the plural. Whatever the meaning, it is transitive and needs an object: one endorses a candidate, a check on its back, a reported symptom, or, in British usage, a driver's license with penalty points. The same spelling is also the heraldic plural, the diminutive pales set in pairs either side of a pale.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of endorse. In heraldry, narrow vertical stripes on a shield.

   The shield bore two endorses flanking the central vertical band.

   The student could not tell the endorses from the narrow pallets on the shield.

   Note

   A heraldic plural, and a natural one: an endorse is a diminutive of the pale, and endorses usually come in pairs, one on either side of a pale. The plural is therefore the form a reader meets most often. The spelling is shared with the verb form meaning "supports", so in a coat-of-arms description, read endorses as a noun when it names something on the shield.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2