links

Plurallinks

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of link.

   Each of the chain's links had been forged by hand.

   Investigators traced the financial links between the two companies.

   Note

   A regular plural, made with a plain -s, and it carries every meaning of the singular: the rings of a chain, ties between companies, hyperlinks on a page. The spelling does other work too. It is also the present-tense verb form (a tunnel links two places) and the name for a seaside golf course, which comes from a different word altogether.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A golf course, especially one laid out on dunes beside the sea.

   The championship returned to the historic links overlooking the bay.

   Strong winds off the sea make these links a brutal test for any golfer.

   Similarcourse

   Note

   The landscape came before the game: Old English hlincas, "rising grounds, hills," became Scots links, the sandy, rolling ground near the seashore. Although it looks plural, it can take either a singular or a plural verb. Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine in 1894 asks what worthy golf links "is not intolerably hard of access," while Litellus Russell Muirhead's Scotland (1967) says the links "are the property of the town."

3. 3
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of link.

   The new treaty links trade policy directly to environmental standards.

   A single tunnel links the harbor with the rail yard.

   Note

   The present-tense form for he, she, it or any singular subject, and it serves every sense of the verb. Most uses are transitive and pair the object with to or with: a treaty links trade to standards, a tunnel links the harbor with the rail yard. On the web it can also stand without an object. A page that links to an archive simply contains a hyperlink to it.

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