routers

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of router.

   The data center relies on dozens of routers to direct traffic between networks.

   Both routers in the cabinet had overheated by the end of the shift.

   Note

   One plural serves a crowd of unrelated things: people who route items from place to place, network devices that forward packets, circuit-design algorithms that lay in every needed wire, carpentry power tools that cut grooves, and an older spokeshave-like plane for the inside edges of circular sashes. Only context tells them apart. A data center's routers and a woodshop's routers share nothing but the spelling and the regular -s.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of router.

   Note

   The verb belongs only to the workshop. To router is to hollow out or cut with the power tool, so this form never describes network traffic, however much the plural noun covers. It takes a direct object, as in routers a groove or routers a slot. The -s marks a singular subject: the carpenter routers, but carpenters router.

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