rows

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of row.

   Spreadsheets organize data into labeled columns and numbered rows.

   Long rows of vines stretched across the hillside vineyard.

   Note

   One spelling gathers several nouns: lines of seats or vines, the horizontal lines of a table set against its columns, gym exercises that pull the arms back, and noisy arguments. In slang it is also a clipping of cornrows, a sense that lives mostly in the plural. A reader who meets her rows in talk about hair should think of braids, not of seating.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of row.

   Each summer she rows the small boat out to the island.

   The fisherman rows steadily against the incoming tide.

   Note

   The object tells this verb's meanings apart. With one, it names the craft or the cargo: she rows the dinghy, he rows the passengers ashore. Without one, it can describe the rower or even the boat, which rows well or badly. The quarreling verb also takes no object and usually pairs with with: he rows with his neighbor. Every one of these shares its spelling with the plural noun.

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