lists

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of list.

   The committee compared two lists of approved suppliers before deciding.

   Shoppers often arrive with detailed lists and leave with twice as much.

   Note

   Usually the plural just means more than one list, but it also carries a meaning of its own. In historical use, lists named the barriers or palisades that fenced off a jousting ground, and then the field of combat itself. That meaning exists only in the plural. Context tells them apart: a committee compares lists of suppliers, while knights ride into the lists. The same spelling also serves the verb form.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of list.

   The catalog lists every product by category and serial number.

   She lists her qualifications at the top of every application.

   Note

   The present-tense form for a singular subject: she lists, the catalog lists. Every other subject takes bare list. Besides the familiar sense of setting things out, the verb has farming and sewing uses. A farmer lists a field by plowing and planting it with a lister. In the Southern US, one lists land for cotton by hoeing it into beds and alleys. Every one of these uses is transitive, so lists always wants an object.

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