lengths

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of length.

   The swimmer completed twenty lengths of the pool before breakfast.

   Bolts of fabric were sold in various lengths to suit different projects.

   Note

   The plural belongs to the countable uses of length: separate measured pieces, laps of a pool, the margins between horses at the finish of a race. When length means extent or duration in general, it is a mass noun and takes no plural. You ask about the length of a stay, not its lengths. Racing keeps the count explicit, since horses finish a number of lengths apart.

2. 2
   verbobsolete

   Third-person singular simple present of length (obsolete, to lengthen).

   Note

   A form of a verb that has fallen out of use: length once meant simply "to lengthen." Modern English puts lengthens in this slot, so the form now reads as archaic or as a slip. It also shares its spelling with the noun plural, so in a sentence like "the shadow lengths" the verb can look like a misprint for lengthens.

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