statues
- 1Plural of statue.
Marble statues lined the entrance hall of the old palace.
Protesters toppled several bronze statues during the unrest.
Note
A regular plural, made by adding -s, but the spelling does double duty. Statue is also a verb meaning to make into a statue, so statues can be its present-tense form as well. In older writing, watch for statue's dated sense of a portrait: there, statues may mean painted likenesses rather than carved or cast figures.
- 2A children's game in which players must stand completely still without moving while someone watches them.
On rainy afternoons the cousins amused themselves with statues in the living room.
Whoever broke their pose first was out, so a tense game of statues could last surprisingly long.
Note
The game borrows its name from the ordinary plural, because each player tries to become one, frozen in a pose while being watched. The name behaves like the name of a pastime and takes no article. You play statues, or join a game of statues, rather than playing a statue.
statues is a form of statue
statue, noun: A three-dimensional work of art, usually of a person or animal, made by carving, molding, casting, or sculpting. Full entry
- Forms
- statuestatues plural
- Spelling
- statue → statues: add -s
- Sound
- The ending sounds like /z/.
Use it in a sentence
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