locks

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of lock.

   The old chest had two heavy locks securing its lid.

   Canal locks raise and lower boats between different water levels.

   Note

   A regular plural that gathers every countable lock under one spelling: the fastenings on a chest or door, the gated stretches of a canal, firing mechanisms, and in computing the tokens that guard a shared resource. Context usually sorts them apart, since canal locks and door locks rarely meet in one sentence. The same letters also spell the word for a head of hair and the verb form, as in she locks the door.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of lock.

   The automatic system locks every entrance at midnight.

   He locks his office whenever he steps out for lunch.

   Note

   The present-tense form for he, she or it, and it serves both sides of the verb. Used transitively, someone locks something (he locks his office). Used intransitively, the thing does it alone: a door that locks behind you, a jaw that locks in fear. The spelling is shared with the plural noun, so the subject in front is what tells the two apart.

3. 3
   nounplural

   A person's hair considered as a whole, especially long or flowing hair.

   Her dark locks tumbled freely down her back as she danced.

   The portrait showed a young man with flowing auburn locks.

   Similartresses, hair, curls, mane, ringlets

   Note

   Hair taken as a whole, but grammatically always plural, so everything that agrees with it is plural too: her locks were damp, and she brushed them dry. A singular verb or a lone "lock" does not carry this meaning, and writers who want the whole head of hair in the singular reach for hair instead.

4. 4
   nouncolloquialplural

   Hair worn in long, ropelike strands formed by matting, twisting, or braiding sections together.

   His locks had grown well past his shoulders since his last haircut.

   She wrapped her locks in a bright headwrap for the festival.

   Similardreads

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