hides

1. 1
   verb

   Third person singular simple present of hide.

   He hides his savings in a tin box behind the bookshelf.

   The thick fog hides the mountains from view each morning.

   Note

   Both kinds of hiding take this form. With an object, something is concealed: she hides the key under the mat. Without one, the subject conceals itself: the cat hides under the bed when guests arrive. A rarer verb with the same spelling means to beat with a whip made of hide, which ties it back to the plural of the noun.

   The cat hides under the bed whenever guests arrive.

   She hides behind a joke when the questions get personal.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of hide.

   The tanner soaked the hides in the vat for several days.

   They stretched the buffalo hides out to dry in the afternoon sun.

   Note

   The plural belongs to the countable meanings of the noun, and there are more of them than leather. Tanners deal in hides. So do birdwatchers and hunters, who sit in hides to watch animals unseen, and snake keepers, who give their pets hides to retreat into. The "own skin" meaning, as in saving one's hide, is usually uncountable and so rarely takes this plural. The same spelling also serves as the present-tense verb.

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