tents

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of tent.

   Rows of tents lined the festival field by Friday afternoon.

   Heavy winds flattened several tents at the base camp overnight.

   Note

   The ordinary plural, made with a plain -s and no change to the stem. It serves every kind of tent the noun names: the camper's shelter, the trouser tent, and in Scotland the portable pulpit set up outdoors for worshippers a church cannot hold. The same spelling is also the present-tense verb, so a number or article in front (rows of tents, two tents) is what marks the noun.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of tent.

   The cook tents the turkey with foil and lets it rest before carving.

   Whenever she considers a hard question, she tents her fingers and falls silent.

   Note

   Here the -s marks agreement with a singular subject in the present: she tents, but they tent. The verb behind it is mostly practical. It covers going camping, propping foil over food before it goes in the oven, and fumigating. It also covers shaping something like a tent, as fingers are tented in thought. An archaic Scottish and dialectal verb meaning to heed or to guard shares the spelling but belongs to another strand of meaning.

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