soups

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of soup.

   The restaurant's winter menu features hearty soups and stews.

   Canned soups fill the entire aisle at the grocery store.

   Note

   The plural belongs to soup as a dish or a serving: a menu of winter soups, three soups ordered at one table. When soup means only the liquid, the broth, it stays uncountable, so a cook strains the soup, not the soups. The figurative uses, such as thick fog likened to pea soup, can be counted or left as a mass noun.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of soup.

   Every mechanic in town soups up cars for the summer rally.

   The tuner soups up plain sedans until they roar like racers.

   Note

   The -s form serves a verb with an unusually scattered history. Photographers use it for developing film: a darkroom worker soups the negatives. Other uses have thinned out. Feeding someone a meal is uncommon. Sweeping, and preaching to the poor in exchange for food, are obsolete. In older writing, soups can also stand in for sups, meaning sips from a spoon or takes supper.

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