paints

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of paint.

   He paints the fence a fresh white every spring.

   The novelist paints her characters with vivid, sympathetic detail.

   Note

   The -s form carries every sense of the verb, from coating a surface to making a picture. With an object it can cover (paints the fence) or create (paints a portrait). Without an object it describes a practice. She paints says that she is a painter, not what she is doing at the moment. For an action in progress, English uses she is painting instead.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of paint.

   The art supply store stocks oil paints from a dozen different makers.

   Lead-based paints were phased out of household use decades ago.

   Note

   The plural works in two ways. It names kinds or formulations, as in oil paints and lead-based paints, and it names an artist's set of colors, as in a box of paints. The basketball slang stays singular and always takes the: players drive into the paint. The same spelling is also the present-tense verb (she paints), so the word before it usually tells you which one you are reading.

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