trains

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of train.

   Freight trains rumbled through the valley all night.

   Commuter trains arrive every fifteen minutes during rush hour.

   Note

   The same -s that pluralizes the railway noun serves every older sense of train too: the trains of gowns that drag along the ground, trains of gunpowder laid in a line, the tails of birds, the glowing trains meteors leave as they fall. The spelling is shared with the present-tense verb (she trains horses). A determiner or adjective in front, as in the trains or long trains, marks the noun.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of train.

   The coach trains the team six mornings a week.

   She trains horses for competitive show jumping.

   Note

   Both halves of the verb meet in this form. It is transitive when someone shapes something else: a coach trains a team, a gardener trains a vine by pruning and bending, a gunner trains a gun to point it sideways. It is intransitive when the effort is one's own, as when a runner simply trains. With a plural subject the base form returns: coaches train.

   He trains six days a week before a race.

   The gardener trains the vine along the fence.

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