lobbies

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of lobby.

   The conference center's spacious lobbies filled quickly before the keynote.

   Powerful industry lobbies spent millions opposing the new regulations.

   Note

   The plural follows the familiar rule for a consonant before y: the y becomes -ies, as in bodies and hobbies. It serves every meaning of lobby, from hotel entrances to the virtual lobbies where players wait for a match, and the pressure-group sense counts naturally: industry lobbies, rival lobbies. The same spelling is also the verb's present form and the name of a British dialect stew.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of lobby.

   The teachers' union lobbies Congress for stronger classroom safety laws.

   Whenever the council debates zoning, the developer lobbies hard for looser limits.

   Note

   Here the verb works with or without an object. Transitively it names the target, as in "she lobbies the senator." Intransitively the cause follows a preposition, as in "the developer lobbies for looser limits." Both patterns are standard, and they combine freely when both target and cause matter: a group lobbies Congress for funding.

3. 3
   noundialectalUKuncountable

   A stew similar to scouse, made using corned beef or canned stewing steak.

   Mum simmered the lobbies for hours until the meat fell apart.

   On bonfire night the neighbors shared bowls of steaming lobbies.

   Note

   A regional British dish name that behaves as a mass noun despite its plural-looking ending. You eat some lobbies or a bowl of lobbies, never "a lobbies." It belongs to dialect speech, so in general writing it reads as local color. It comes from a separate source and shares nothing with the entrance hall or the pressure group except its spelling.

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