plums

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of plum.

   She arranged the plums in a bowl beside the peaches.

   Late-summer plums fell from the branches and bruised on the grass.

   Note

   Because plum names both the fruit and the tree that bears it, plums can mean a bowlful of fruit or a row of trees in an orchard. The word also stretches across several Prunus species. Cherry plums, Japanese plums and even sloes all count, so the plural can gather fruits that a botanist would keep apart.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of plum.

   Note

   A spelling that looks like fruit but means measuring: as a verb, plum is another way of writing plumb. The builder who plums a post is checking it against a hanging weight. The -s goes with he, she or it in the present tense. With I, you, we or they the form is plain plum. On the page, only context separates it from the fruit plural.

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