opens

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of open.

   The museum opens its new exhibit to the public next week.

   A narrow path opens onto a wide meadow beyond the trees.

   Note

   One form serves both halves of a flexible verb. With an object, someone acts on something: she opens the letter, the nurse opens the bed for a patient. Without one, the thing moves by itself: the door opens, the bud opens. Followed by onto or into, it says where a passage or view leads. At the card table it means showing one's hand.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of open.

   He qualified for several opens during his rookie season.

   The federation reshuffled the calendar so the regional opens no longer clash.

   Note

   Only the countable uses of the noun take this plural. A sports calendar fills with regional opens, an electrician may trace two opens in one circuit, and e-mail senders count opens the way shops count visitors. The meanings of open space and full view stay singular: a secret comes out into the open, never into the opens. The same spelling is also the present-tense verb, as in the door opens.

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