rights

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of right.

   The constitution guarantees certain rights to every citizen.

   Activists campaigned for decades to secure equal rights for all communities.

   Note

   The plural is where the entitlement meanings of right do most of their work: equal rights, civil rights, the rights a constitution guarantees. The publishing and broadcasting sense typically appears in the plural too. Someone buys the film rights or holds the rights to a novel, with to rather than of. The same spelling also serves as the verb form meaning 'corrects'.

   The studio bought the film rights to her first novel.

   Who holds the rights to these recordings now?

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of right.

   The ship rights itself once the heavy waves settle.

   He quietly rights every error before the report goes out.

   Note

   Beside the plural noun, the verb is told apart by its singular subject: a ship rights, a clerk rights. Its most natural companions are itself and wrong. A capsized boat rights itself, and a court rights a wrong. These two pairings match the verb's meanings of setting upright and of doing justice. The bare intransitive use, as in the boat slowly rights, exists but is less common than the reflexive.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2