freezes

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of freeze.

   The river freezes over by early December most years.

   If the program receives bad data, it freezes and stops responding.

   Note

   The form that goes with he, she, it or a singular noun; every other present-tense subject takes bare freeze. The verb's whole range carries over, so water freezes, a screen freezes, and a startled deer freezes. Most of these uses take no object, but one does: someone freezes food or a sample, lowering its temperature until it hardens.

   She freezes the leftover soup in small portions.

   The deer freezes the moment it hears a twig snap.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of freeze.

   A series of sudden freezes ruined the orchard's early blossoms.

   The company announced two separate hiring freezes within a single year.

   Note

   Only the countable uses of the noun take this plural: spells of bitter cold, halts to hiring or pay rises, programs that lock up, even the curling shot where a stone settles against another. Older texts hide a homograph, because freeze was once a spelling of frieze, so freezes there may be carved bands on a building. The same spelling also serves as the present-tense verb.

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