services

Pluralservices

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of service.

   The company provides cleaning and repair services to local businesses.

   Emergency services arrived within minutes of the call.

   Note

   The plural brings out the countable side of service. It names distinct kinds of help or work, such as cleaning services and repair services. It also covers organized departments and utility supplies, which is why emergency services and water services read naturally. The military meaning is the exception, because it has no plural of its own: someone does military service, never military services.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   Work or actions that are produced, traded, bought or sold, and then used up, rather than physical goods.

   Like a concert: you pay for the performance, which exists only while it happens, not for an object you take home.

   The economy increasingly depends on services rather than manufactured goods.

   Consulting firms produce services that clients consume as the work is delivered.

   Oppositegoods

   Note

   Economists set it against goods. A haircut, an audit or a consultation is bought and used up in the act of delivery, and nothing is left to store or resell. In this sense the word nearly always appears in the plural, often in the fixed pairing goods and services. It also appears in direct contrast with manufacturing, as when an economy is said to shift toward services.

3. 3
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of service.

   The technician services the heating system before winter each year.

   One contractor services every vending machine in the district.

   Note

   The verb form shares its spelling with the plural noun, so only the sentence tells them apart. A technician services the boiler, and a borrower services a debt. The verb leans toward maintenance and repayment, where plain serves would sound wrong. Two meanings of the base verb are sexual, one euphemistic and one vulgar, so saying that someone services a person can easily read as innuendo.

4. 4
   nounUKcountable

   A roadside complex on a major highway that provides fuel, food, restrooms, and parking for travelers: a service station.

   Like a harbor where ships resupply, except it's cars pulling off the highway to refuel and rest.

   We stopped at the services on the M6 for a quick coffee.

   There are no services for another forty miles along this motorway.

   Note

   A British road word that keeps its plural shape even when it means a single place. That is why a driver can say "there's a services in ten miles" with a singular article in front of it. The verb may agree in the singular or the plural. Unlike the ordinary plural, it refers to one site, and American English names the same stop differently, usually as a rest stop.

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