styles

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of style.

   The catalog groups the dresses by their distinct styles.

   Architectural styles across the city span three centuries.

   Note

   The plural covers far more than fashions and manners. Because style also names pointed things, styles can be the stalks joining stigma to ovary in a flower's pistil, the gnomons of several sundials, or an engraver's sharp-pointed tools. Context does the sorting: a catalog of styles means designs, while a pistil's styles belong to botany. The ending is the same regular -s in every case.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of style.

   The designer styles each window display around a single color.

   Their editor styles the manuscript according to the house guide.

   Note

   Behind the regular -s sits a verb with a formal side. Besides designing or arranging something, style means giving a name or title, and that use reads naturally with a reflexive object: someone styles himself a historian. In informal US speech the verb can also stand without an object, meaning to act in a way that shows off one's style.

   He styles himself a historian, though he has never published a line.

   The pretender still styles himself king of a country that no longer exists.

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