lows

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of low.

   Temperatures dropped to record lows across the region overnight.

   Investors grew anxious as oil prices sank to fresh lows.

   Note

   A plural that gathers several different kinds of bottom: overnight temperature minimums, the lowest prices a market reaches, spells of low mood, areas of low pressure, even the lowest gear or the lowest trump. In weather and price reporting it pairs naturally with record or fresh (record lows, fresh lows). The low-pressure use is informal, so formal forecasts may prefer depressions.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of low.

   The herd grows restless and one heifer lows at the approaching storm.

   Each evening the old ox lows from the barn until it is fed.

   Note

   The cattle verb in its everyday present: a cow or ox lows, but never lows something, because the mooing sense takes no object. The same spelling also belongs to an obsolete verb meaning "to lower" and to a Scottish dialect verb meaning "to burn." It also matches the plural noun, so a lone lows depends on its sentence to show which word it is.

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