pencils

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of pencil.

   The art store stocks colored pencils in dozens of shades.

   He gathered the loose pencils scattered across the workbench.

   Note

   A plural that covers more than writing tools. Physicists speak of pencils of light, rays gathered toward a point or spreading from one. Geometers speak of pencils of lines, such as every line through a given point in a plane. Historically, a painter's pencils were brushes, not graphite. The same spelling also serves as the verb's present form, so "two pencils" and "she pencils" differ only in grammar.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of pencil.

   Each morning she pencils her tasks into a small notebook.

   The illustrator pencils the panel layout before any inking begins.

   Note

   The verb's present form almost always takes a direct object, because both meanings of pencil as a verb are transitive: she pencils a reminder, he pencils the outline. One meaning is writing with the tool itself. The other is marking, and it stretches to marks made only as if with a pencil, such as fine lines drawn by something else entirely.

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