lobsters

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of lobster.

   Two lobsters scuttled across the bottom of the holding tank.

   The restaurant boils its lobsters to order rather than ahead of time.

   Note

   The countable plural, used when the animals are counted one by one: two lobsters in a tank, a boat landing lobsters. As food the mass noun often serves instead, so you eat lobster rather than lobsters. The same plural covers the slang senses too: redcoats of the old imperial British Army, named for their scarlet uniforms, and, in Australia, twenty-dollar notes, named for their reddish-orange color.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of lobster.

   My uncle lobsters out of a small harbor north of the city.

   Whenever the weather allows, she lobsters in the shallow bays near the headland.

   Note

   Here the noun has become a verb meaning to fish for lobsters, and it takes no object. A person lobsters off a coast or out of a harbor and does not lobster anything. The spelling is identical to the plural of the animal, so the grammar of the sentence tells them apart: in she lobsters the word is a verb, and in the lobsters it names the creatures.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2