plants

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of plant.

   Desert plants store water in thick stems to survive long droughts.

   Gardeners moved the young plants outdoors once the frost had passed.

   Note

   A plural that splits the industrial meanings in two. Factories can be counted, so two plants are two facilities. The machinery meaning is uncountable, so a firm's equipment stays plant, never plants. The same spelling is also the present-tense verb (she plants beans), and only the surrounding sentence tells the noun from the verb.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of plant.

   Each spring she plants long rows of beans along the back fence.

   The city plants new trees along every renovated street.

   Note

   Every meaning of the verb passes through this form, from the garden to deceit: she plants bulbs, a spy plants evidence, he plants his feet. Nearly all of these uses take a direct object. The gardening meaning can also stand alone, as in "she plants in April," with no object named.

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