lasts

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of last.

   The storm lasts only as long as the warm front holds.

   Her enthusiasm lasts well beyond the first week of any project.

   Note

   The everyday verb of duration usually wants a stretch of time after it: a storm lasts an hour, a battery lasts all day, enthusiasm lasts until Friday. With plural subjects, and with I or you, the bare form takes over (the batteries last). Most uses take no object. The exception belongs to the workshop of the shoemaker's lasts, where a craftsman lasts a boot by shaping it on the form.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of last.

   Rows of leather-covered lasts lined the factory wall.

   Custom bootmakers store individual lasts for their regular clients.

   Note

   Mostly a workshop plural: the foot-shaped forms on which boots and shoes are built. The same plural once counted cargo, because a last was also an old measure of a ship's carrying capacity, equal to two tons, and a load of goods reckoned by weight. Context separates it from the verb meaning "endures", though even the verb has a cobbler's use: a craftsman lasts a shoe by shaping it on the form.

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