shares

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of share.

   The siblings divided the inheritance into four equal shares.

   Investors sold their shares as soon as the market dipped.

   Note

   One spelling gathers very different plurals. Most often it means portions handed out, or the units of company ownership investors buy and sell. In computing it names network configurations that make a resource available to others, and on social media it counts how often a post is passed along. Farmers know another meaning: the cutting blades of a plow or cultivator. Context tells these apart, and also separates them from the verb in 'she shares'.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of share.

   The company shares its annual report with all employees.

   She shares an office with a colleague from the legal team.

   Note

   The -s form that agrees with he, she, it or a singular noun: the company shares, she shares. It carries every use of the verb, from sharing an office to telling news to opening files on a network. In older writing it can also mean "cuts" or "cleaves", a use now obsolete. There, shares means dividing by cutting, not giving a portion away.

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