kangaroos

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of kangaroo.

   A mob of kangaroos grazed quietly near the edge of the paddock.

   Drought drove the kangaroos toward town in search of water.

   Note

   A regular plural, made by simply adding -s, and it serves every meaning of the noun. Most often it counts the hopping marsupials of the Macropodidae family, native to Australia. In Canada it can also count hooded fleece jackets with a front pocket, the so-called kangaroo jackets. The same spelling doubles as the present-tense verb form, so the sentence tells you whether kangaroos are grazing or someone kangaroos along.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of kangaroo.

   The old truck kangaroos forward in jerky lurches until the engine warms up.

   She kangaroos the stick-shift car so badly that her instructor winces at every intersection.

   Note

   Quite different verbs share this present-tense form, and they differ in whether they take an object. A nurse or parent who kangaroos a premature baby holds it skin to skin, so that use needs an object. Hunting kangaroo and moving in kangaroo-like bounds normally take none: a hunter kangaroos, and a lurching car kangaroos down the road. Grammatically, the form is just the plural noun's spelling put to work as a verb.

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