insults

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of insult.

   A stream of insults followed him out of the meeting.

   The two rivals traded insults across the courtroom.

   Note

   Only the countable uses of insult can be counted out like this. One is a single remark or act meant to wound, and another is something offensive in its own right, such as shoddy work. The plural also reaches into medicine, where insults are whatever injures the body or disturbs its workings. The same spelling serves the present-tense verb, so only the surrounding words show whether insults are being named or done.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of insult.

   Whenever the manager insults a customer, complaints flood in.

   The columnist routinely insults the very readers who fund the paper.

   Note

   The present-tense form that agrees with he, she, it or a singular noun. In current use it takes a direct object: someone insults a person, a crowd, a reputation. Older English also let the verb stand without one, meaning to lord it over someone or to leap upon something, but those uses are obsolete. When no object follows, the word is usually the plural noun instead.

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