stores

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of store.

   Several grocery stores closed early during the storm.

   The expedition packed enough stores to last six months at sea.

   Note

   One plural, several pictures: a row of shops, provisions packed for a voyage, or a farmer's cattle. The shop meaning is mainly North American. An expedition's stores are its supplies held in reserve. On a farm, stores are cattle raised to be sold on for finishing. The same spelling is also the verb form (the warehouse stores goods), so the word's place in the sentence tells you which one you have.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of store.

   The warehouse stores thousands of products before they ship to customers.

   A rechargeable battery stores energy for use after sunset.

   Note

   An object nearly always follows, and what kind of object it is changes the meaning. A warehouse that stores goods is keeping them until they are needed. A drive that stores two terabytes is describing its capacity, not anything it is doing. In computing the verb also means writing data into memory or registers, so a program stores a value much as a clerk files a record.

   The new drive stores two terabytes of data.

   The program stores each result in a register before the next step.

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