scans

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of scan.

   Radiologists reviewed the brain scans before recommending surgery.

   The hospital stored all of the patient scans on a secure server.

   Note

   A plural that inherits a double meaning: one scan can be a careful reading, another a hurried skim, and only context tells which. As a count noun it also names results, such as brain scans, document scans and whatever a scanner outputs. Programmers have a count noun of their own here. Scans are higher-order functions that run an accumulator along a sequence and return every running result.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of scan.

   The editor scans the manuscript quickly for obvious errors.

   Each morning the security system scans every visitor's badge at the gate.

   Note

   Every meaning of the verb takes a direct object, so this form does too: she scans the horizon, the parser scans the input, the till scans a barcode. The -s appears only with he, she, it or a singular noun; I, you, we and they keep the base scan. The same spelling serves the plural noun, and the careful-or-quick ambiguity carries over to the verb unchanged.

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