ships

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of ship.

   Several ships were lost during the storm last winter.

   Cargo ships now dominate the world's busiest trade routes.

   Note

   A regular plural that brings every meaning of the singular with it. The same -s gives airships and spaceships, the still-life patterns of six live cells around an empty one, and the hull-shaped dishes that hold incense. In older, formal writing it can mean square-rigged vessels with three or more masts. The identical spelling is also the present-tense verb, as in "the company ships parts." Context decides which one is meant.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of ship.

   This warehouse ships thousands of packages every single day.

   The vineyard ships its wine directly to customers each fall.

   Note

   Here the verb takes a singular subject in the present, and it often turns around so that the thing sent is the subject: an update ships next week. A sailor who ships as crew works the same way, with no object. Both sit alongside the ordinary transitive pattern, where a sender ships goods to someone by any means of transport. The noun with the same spelling is the plural noun.

   The new version ships to customers in March.

   He ships as a deckhand on a cargo vessel every summer.

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