presents

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of present.

   Guests piled their presents on the table near the door.

   He spent the whole weekend shopping for birthday presents.

   Note

   The everyday plural belongs to the gift meaning: birthday presents, Christmas presents, a heap of presents by the door. The time-related noun names a single "now" and seldom needs a plural. The same spelling also serves as a verb form, as in the verb in "she presents", and in writing only the surrounding sentence tells a reader which one is meant.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of present.

   The lawyer presents new evidence to the court this afternoon.

   Each finalist presents for ten minutes before the judges ask questions.

   Note

   The form a singular subject takes: she presents, the committee presents, it presents. Most uses take an object, so a lawyer presents evidence and a host presents a guest. One meaning is reflexive, though, and someone presents himself or herself at a door or before an authority. The identically spelled noun is covered under the plural of the gift sense.

3. 3
   nounplural

   In legal usage, the present written document itself: the one in which the word appears.

   Know all men by these presents that the company transfers full ownership to the buyer.

   All parties named in these presents shall be bound by its terms.

   Note

   A plural that points to one document: lawyers' shorthand for "this very writing." It lives in fixed formulas such as know all men by these presents, and Gerald R. Ford still used it in his 1974 pardon proclamation: "have granted and by these presents do grant." It has no singular, and it belongs to deeds and proclamations rather than ordinary prose.

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