legs

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of leg.

   The dancer stretched her legs before stepping onto the stage.

   Most spiders have eight legs arranged in pairs.

   Note

   A perfectly regular plural: leg simply adds -s. It covers every sense of the singular, so the same word counts a spider's limbs, a table's supports and the two halves of a pair of trousers. The spelling is shared with the verb's present-tense form, as in "she legs the horse forward." The two never clash in practice, because a noun follows a determiner and a verb follows its subject.

2. 2
   nouncolloquial

   The viscous streaks that form on the inside of a glass when certain wines are swirled before tasting.

   Like syrup clinging to the side of a tilted spoon before it slides down.

   The sommelier swirled the Bordeaux and pointed out the legs forming on the glass.

   Wines high in alcohol and sugar tend to show pronounced legs.

   Similartears

   Note

   A taster's word, colloquial even among wine lovers, and part of the ritual of swirling and sniffing before the first sip. The streaks form through the Marangoni effect: alcohol evaporates faster than water, which shifts the liquid's surface tension and draws it into slow ribbons. Use it in the plural, as in a wine's legs or the legs sluicing down the glass. It describes how a wine looks, not how it tastes.

3. 3
   noun

   In a game of bingo, the number eleven.

   Only legs stood between her and a full house.

   The hall erupted when legs turned out to be the final number called.

   Similareleven

   Note

   A bingo caller's word that stands in for a number. It belongs entirely to the game: in the hall it means eleven, and outside it the word goes back to meaning limbs. Use it only where the listener knows bingo calls. To anyone else, a sentence like "she was waiting on legs" will sound like nonsense rather than a number.

4. 4
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of leg.

   The fox legs it across the field at the first sign of danger.

   She legs it home every time the rain starts.

   Note

   The present-tense form of a verb with several working trades behind it. A butcher legs a carcass, a stage builder legs a platform, and a rider legs a horse by pressing with the leg. In the stock market, the verb describes putting on a series of options strikes. The -s appears only after he, she, it or a singular noun, and it gives the form the same spelling as the plural noun.

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