stirs

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of stir.

   The chef stirs the broth slowly to release its aromatics.

   A gentle breeze stirs the leaves at dawn.

   Note

   The -s form that a single he, she or it takes in the present: the cook stirs the sauce, a speech stirs the crowd. Every current meaning takes an object, whether that object is a liquid, a container, someone's feelings or a public question. In older writing it could also mean simply to disturb or disrupt, a use now obsolete. A reader may still meet that older force in early texts.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of stir.

   A couple of stirs were enough to dissolve the sugar completely.

   After a few slow stirs, the honey melted into the hot tea.

   Note

   A plural that serves very different meanings. Separate acts of stirring a pot can be counted, and so can separate bursts of commotion, uproar or troubled feeling. In finance the letters stand for short-term interest rates, so the plural can also mean several such rates or the futures and options built on them. The same spelling is also the present-tense verb, and context tells them apart.

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