gains

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of gain.

   Modest gains in literacy were recorded across the region this decade.

   The team made real gains on defense after the coaching change.

   Note

   The counted form of a noun that also works as a mass noun. Gain in general takes no plural, so a speculator acts for gain, but separate advances can be counted: a region records gains in literacy. The same spelling also covers a carpenter's gains, the notches cut into a girder or joist to take the ends of floor beams, and it doubles as the verb's present-tense form.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of gain.

   An economy gains little from policies that discourage investment.

   The hiker gains nearly a thousand feet of elevation on the final stretch.

   Note

   The present-tense form whose most distinctive construction is gains on, meaning closing the distance on someone ahead. Without on it usually takes an object: an economy gains little, a hiker gains elevation. It can also stand alone in the sense of profiting or making progress. The older use for winning a contest outright is now dated, so for that meaning prefer wins.

   The chasing car gains on the leader with every lap.

   Each week the challenger gains on the incumbent in the polls.

3. 3
   noun

   The increase in muscle mass that comes from strength training and good nutrition.

   Like compound interest, where steady, repeated effort visibly stacks up over time.

   After a year of consistent lifting, his gains were obvious across his shoulders and arms.

   Many lifters track their gains by photographing themselves at the end of each month.

   Note

   Gym talk, used in the plural: lifters make gains, maximize their gains and chase them. Newbie gains names the quick growth a skinny beginner can expect in the first months of training. Arnold Schwarzenegger's The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding (2012) sets gains against contest preparation, because dieting for competition gives up some of the size that full-intensity training builds. Outside the gym the word goes back to ordinary advances of any kind.

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