trend

Pluraltrends

Formstrends, trending, trended

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A fashionable style or activity that becomes widely popular for a period of time.

   Skinny jeans were a big trend a few years ago.

   Social media spreads new trends faster than ever before.

   Similarfad, craze, fashion, vogue, rage

   Note

   Fashion's sense is usually plural and usually followed. A good photographer "has to follow the trends," Michael Grecco writes in Lighting and the Dramatic Portrait (2006), and a pop album answers to "the current trends." Superlatives come easily too, as in one of the biggest trends of the 1960s. Where the general tendency describes a direction of change, this sense names the thing in fashion.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A general direction in which something tends to change or develop.

   There is a clear trend toward working from home.

   Recent sales figures show an upward trend.

   Similartendency, movement, shift, pattern, drift

   Note

   Here the word names a drift in behavior, not a line on a map. Besides trend toward something, it takes a for … to construction: there is a trend for people in films not to smoke. That pattern names who is changing and what they now do, and it sits comfortably after there is, often with these days.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A leaning or movement in a particular direction.

   The mountain range follows a trend from north to south.

   Voters showed a marked trend toward the new party.

   Similartendency, direction, drift, shift, swing

   Note

   The core sense the others grow from. Old English trendan meant "to roll about, turn, revolve," so a trend was first a turning, then the way a thing turns or runs. It still works for land and for numbers: the trend of a coastline, the upward trend of stock-market prices. One word covers the bend of a shore and the climb of a price chart.

4. 4
   verbcolloquialintransitive

   To be widely shared and discussed online, becoming popular for a short time.

   Her cooking video started to trend within hours of posting.

   The hashtag trended worldwide over the weekend.

   Note

   Social media turned the word into a verb with a scoreboard behind it: topics, posts and hashtags trend when they rank among a platform's most-shared items. It appears mostly in the progressive (what has been trending this week) and as an adjective (a trending topic). It takes on for the platform and in for the place: the hashtag trended on Twitter in Thailand. Though informal, Reuters and Voice of America use it freely.

5. 5
   verbintransitive

   To extend or run in a particular direction.

   The fault line trends northeast across the valley.

   Several rocky ridges trend parallel to the shore.

   Similarrun, extend, stretch

   Note

   The verb keeps the old idea of turning toward a heading. Geographers use it with a compass direction: a shore trends to the southwest, a ridge trends northeast. Critics borrow it for a drift in quality. Tasha Robinson's 2012 AV Club review says Snow White and the Huntsman "trends throughout toward generic fantasy tropes." It takes no object; the direction follows as to, toward, or a bare compass point.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   A line drawn on a graph that approximates the general direction of a scattered set of data points.

   The analyst fitted a trend to the quarterly figures.

   The two trends diverged after the third data point.

   Note

   A statistician's line, not a tendency: the trend here is the drawn line itself, straight or curved, fitted to scattered points. It is often fitted by least squares, which minimizes the total squared distance between line and observations. Analysts speak of fitting a trend and of two trends diverging, treating the line as an object. It is what makes the general tendency visible on paper.

7. 7
   verbtransitive

   To cause something to turn aside or bend in a different direction.

   The miners trend the tunnel slightly eastward to avoid the rock face.

   He trended the wire carefully so it curved around the post.

   Similarbend, turn, angle, divert

   Note

   Of all its uses, this one stays closest to the root's sense of turning: someone or something bends a course. In William Browne's Britannia's Pastorals (1616), a river "trends / Her silver stream" through a valley. Unlike the running-in-a-direction verb, this one takes an object, the thing turned, and that object is what tells the two apart.

8. 8
   nouncountable

   The angle formed between the line of a vessel's keel and the direction of the anchor cable as she swings at anchor.

   The trend shifted steadily as the ebbing tide swung the ship.

   Officers watched the trend to judge how the vessel lay to her anchor.

   Note

   Seamanship again, but now a measurement rather than a piece of metal. The angle is taken horizontally, between the fore-and-aft line of the keel and the lead of the cable. It never holds still, because wind and tide swing the hull about the anchor, so the trend keeps changing as she lies. Officers read it to judge how the vessel rides.

9. 9
   nouncountable

   The lower end of an anchor's shank, lying the same distance from the throat as the arm reaches from throat to tip.

   The blacksmith reinforced the trend where the shank met the arms.

   Rust had eaten deep into the trend of the abandoned anchor.

   Note

   Anchor anatomy has its own vocabulary: shank, throat, arm, bill, crown. On a traditional anchor the trend is the lowest stretch of the shank, where it meets the crown. This is where a smith reinforces the join and where rust bites deepest. Keep it apart from the angle at anchor, a second nautical use of the same word that measures a ship's position, not a part of the anchor.

10. 10
    verbtransitive

    To cleanse or clean something, especially raw wool.

    Villagers trend the raw fleece in running water.

    The girl trended the wool until the grease washed away.

    Similarclean, wash, cleanse, scour

    Note

    The verb partner of the dialect word for clean wool comes from the same separate origin and has nothing to do with trend as direction. It is transitive, and its usual object is fleece or wool, scoured of grease and dirt. Like the noun, it belongs to the dialect and history of the woolen trade rather than to current speech.

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