exits

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of exit.

   Firefighters checked that all the building's exits were clear and unlocked.

   Two of the freeway exits were closed for overnight repaving.

   Note

   A regular -s plural that counts any kind of exit: the doors of a building, the ramps off a freeway, an actor's departures from the stage. The same spelling is also the present-tense verb, so the exits is a noun but she exits is a verb. Quite separate is the old word for income, which exists only in the plural.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of exit.

   The train exits the tunnel into bright morning sunlight.

   Each player exits the field once the whistle blows.

   Note

   Both kinds of departure take this form. With an object, a train exits the tunnel; without one, a character simply exits. Computing uses it both ways too: a program exits, or a user exits the program. The spelling is shared with the plural noun, and what comes before it tells them apart: she exits, but the exits.

3. 3
   nounhistoricalplural

   Income, returns, or revenue: the money received from a property or enterprise over a period of time.

   Similarincome, revenue, returns, proceeds, earnings

   Oppositeexpenses

   Note

   A plural-only word from historical English for what a holding yields: income, returns, revenue. There is no singular in this sense. One spoke of the exits of a property, never of an exit. Today it belongs to writing about the past. In modern prose, income or revenue says the same thing without making readers picture doors.

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