polices

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of police.

   A volunteer committee polices the neighborhood for code violations.

   The agency polices financial firms to enforce reporting rules.

   Note

   Here the -s is a verb ending, not a plural: a committee polices a neighborhood, an agency polices an industry. Because police ends in a hissing sound, the ending adds a full extra syllable. The form also carries the figurative sense of enforcing norms (a forum that polices its own members). It shares its spelling with the vernacular plural noun, but the sentence always separates them, because the verb takes a subject and usually an object.

2. 2
   nounnonstandard

   Plural of police. Nonstandard; standard English treats police as already plural or says police officers.

   The polices showed up the minute the music got loud.

   A couple of polices were standing on the corner watching everybody.

   Note

   A count-noun plural that standard English does without. There, police is normally plural already (the police are coming), and an individual is an officer. In some regional speech a single officer can be a police, and the regular -s plural follows naturally: three polices standing there. The form belongs to African-American Vernacular English. In standard or formal writing, police officers is the safe choice.

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