rallies

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of rally.

   Organizers planned several rallies ahead of the election.

   Long baseline rallies decided most of the points in that match.

   Note

   The spelling follows the familiar pattern for nouns ending in -y: the y becomes i before -es. The plural covers nearly every meaning of the noun, including campaign gatherings, protests, long exchanges of strokes on a court, timed motor races and market recoveries. The exception is the old sense of good-humored raillery, which is uncountable and so never takes this form.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of rally.

   The coach rallies her squad whenever morale begins to slip.

   The stock typically rallies once quarterly earnings beat expectations.

   Note

   One spelling does two jobs: the same letters serve as the plural noun, so word order decides which you are reading. As a verb it moves between transitive and intransitive uses. A coach rallies her squad, but a stock simply rallies, and a patient rallies after illness without any object at all. In the teasing sense it always takes an object, because one person rallies another.

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