heats

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of heat.

   A microwave heats food by exciting the water molecules inside it.

   The radiator heats the whole room within an hour of being switched on.

   Note

   One form, two constructions. With an object it means making something hotter (the oven heats the kitchen); without one it means becoming hotter (the oven heats slowly). Either way it often pairs with up, as in the room heats up or she heats up the soup. In figurative use it can mean stirring feeling or passion rather than raising a temperature.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of heat.

   The swimmers competed in three separate heats before the final.

   Officials reseeded the athletes after the opening heats.

   Note

   Only the countable uses of the noun take this plural. Thermal energy, the burn of a spice and the plain quality of being hot are mass ideas with no plural, so nobody counts the heats of a chili. Countable heats, such as a pitcher's fastballs, count freely. A plural of a different kind survives in the dated word for hot spells.

3. 3
   noundatedcountableplural

   A stretch of hot weather, typically the hottest part of summer.

   The dry heats of late August withered the crops in the fields.

   During the heats of summer the mortar is injured by a too rapid desiccation.

   1871, Robert Scott Burn, Masonry

   Note

   A plural-only word with a fixed frame. It nearly always appears as the heats of followed by a season or month: the heats of July, of spring, of summer. It belonged to ordinary practical prose. Robert Scott Burn's Masonry, Bricklaying and Plastering (1871) warns that mortar is injured "during the heats of summer." It now sounds dated, so keep it for period flavor.

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