examples

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of example.

   The teacher walked through several examples before assigning the homework.

   Both examples in the report pointed to the same underlying flaw.

   Note

   A regular plural that carries every sense of the noun at once: instances standing for a group, illustrations of a rule, models of conduct good or bad, people punished as a warning, precedents, and problems set as exercises. Worked examples in a textbook belong to that last sense, problems solved to show a rule in action. The same spelling also serves as the verb form, which takes an object instead.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of example. Rare: exemplifies is the usual word.

   Note

   Here the word is a verb, and the -s marks a singular subject in the present: the carving examples, this case examples. It looks exactly like the plural noun, so the way to tell them apart is the slot it fills. After a singular subject and before an object, it is the verb. It means much what exemplify means, and exemplify is the safer choice where a reader might stumble.

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