forests

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of forest.

   The country's old-growth forests store enormous amounts of carbon.

   Loggers cleared vast tracts of the coastal forests within a decade.

   Note

   The plural carries every countable meaning of forest, not only the wooded one. In graph theory a forest is a graph made up of trees, and mathematicians compare forests. Network administrators manage forests of domains. Historians write of England's royal forests, land set aside for hunting or other privileged use. Only the color sense, forest green, has no plural, because it is uncountable.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of forest.

   The agency forests degraded farmland to restore native habitat.

   Every year the council forests the slopes above town to prevent erosion.

   Note

   It has the same spelling as the plural noun, but here forest is a transitive verb meaning to cover land with trees. It needs an object naming the land, as in forests the slopes or forests farmland. Word order usually tells the two apart. After an article, as in the forests, it is the noun. Between a singular subject and an object, it is the verb.

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