screens

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of screen.

   Workers installed mesh screens over the windows to keep insects out.

   The control room glowed with a wall of screens tracking each train.

   Note

   A plural that does a lot of different work. Mesh screens sort crushed stone by size, printers force paint through stenciled mesh screens, and in a laboratory screens are searches, as when a geneticist runs several screens to find the genes behind a function. The spelling is shared with the present-tense verb; a word in front such as the, two or these marks the noun.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of screen.

   Airport security screens each bag for prohibited items.

   A tall hedge screens the garden from the busy road.

   Note

   Here the form agrees with a singular subject (she, it, the clinic), and the words that follow decide which meaning is meant. Followed by for, it means testing: the lab screens samples for a disease. Followed by from, it means shielding: the hedge screens the garden from the road. With a film as its object, it means showing that film publicly.

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