logs

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of log.

   Two heavy logs floated downstream after the storm.

   Investigators combed through the access logs for signs of intrusion.

   Note

   An ordinary -s plural, but one spelling carries very different things: felled trunks and cut firewood, the timber measure of sixteen feet, the wooden float used in navigation to gauge a vessel's speed, and, figuratively, blockheads. Context does the sorting. Two logs on a fire are pieces of wood, but a trunk measured at three logs is forty-eight feet long. The same spelling also serves as the present-tense verb.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of log.

   The nurse logs each patient's temperature twice a shift.

   The system automatically logs every failed login attempt.

   Note

   Here the -s marks agreement. It goes with he, she, it or a singular noun in the present, while I, you, we and they take bare log. The verb behind it has two families: harvesting timber (the crew logs all summer) and recording entries (she logs every call). A vessel that logs ten knots is moving at a speed measured by the chip log.

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