riots

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of riot.

   A series of riots erupted across the country during the long heat wave.

   Historians traced the bread riots to a sudden spike in grain prices.

   Note

   Counting outbreaks is where the plural feels most at home: bread riots, a series of riots, three riots in a week. The figurative riot of unchecked variety and the old riot of lavish feasting can be counted too, but a plural most often signals public disorder. The same spelling is also the verb. After a subject it is the present-tense verb (the town riots). After an article or a number it is this noun.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of riot.

   A mob riots in the square each time the verdict is delayed.

   Whenever fuel prices climb, the city riots within days.

   Note

   Usually the form stands without an object: a mob riots, the city riots. Two rarer transitive uses survive alongside it. One means throwing something into tumult, and the other simply means annoying someone. So an object after riots points to one of those. An older intransitive sense, indulging in excess of feasting and luxury, is now obsolete. For telling it apart from the plural noun, look at what comes before it.

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