gins

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of gin.

   The distillery produces several gins, each with a distinct blend of botanicals.

   The trappers checked their gins at dawn for any caught game.

   Note

   A plural that only some meanings of gin can take. Applied to the spirit, gins means kinds or brands, as in a bar stocking a dozen gins, while a single drink is simply a gin. Trappers' gins are snares set for game. The card game gin rummy has no plural, so a table playing several hands is still playing gin, never gins.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of gin.

   This factory gins more cotton in a day than the old mill did in a week.

   Each fall the cooperative gins the harvest brought in from the surrounding farms.

   Note

   Three different verbs share this spelling. A cotton mill gins the harvest by stripping the seeds from the fiber. A trapper gins an animal by catching it in a snare. In Early Modern English, a thing gins when it begins, a use that is now archaic. Context usually sorts them at once, and the same letters also spell the noun plural.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2