strawberries

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of strawberry.

   Ripe strawberries lined the shelves at the weekend market.

   She folded fresh strawberries into the batter before baking.

   Note

   A regular plural: when a consonant comes before the final y, the y gives way to -ies. The plural serves the countable uses of strawberry, such as the fruits, the plants and the berries of the strawberry tree. It also covers a US slang use for women who trade sex for crack cocaine. When strawberry names a flavor or a color it usually stays singular: a hint of strawberry, walls painted strawberry.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of strawberry.

   Note

   Here the same spelling is a verb, built by the rule behind the plural of the fruit. Only the sentence tells them apart. After she or a singular noun it is the verb (she strawberries every June); after an article or a number it is the fruit. Both verb meanings take no object: gathering the fruit, and turning its dark pinkish-red. So nothing follows the verb directly, and a child simply strawberries until dusk.

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