murders

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of murder.

   A string of unsolved murders shook the quiet town.

   The jury reviewed evidence from two separate murders.

   Note

   A plural that only some meanings of murder can take. Separate killings can be counted (two murders, a string of murders), and so can crows, which gather in murders. But murder as the crime in the abstract, and murder as something hard to endure (the commute was murder), stay uncountable and never take the -s.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of murder.

   The character murders three people before the police close in.

   Whoever murders for money rarely escapes suspicion for long.

   Note

   Every sense of the verb travels with this form, not only the criminal one. A team murders its rivals when it beats them decisively, and a singer murders a song by mangling it. In British colloquial use, someone murders a plate of food by devouring it. It is spelled exactly like the plural noun, so only its position after a subject marks it as the verb.

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