tubes

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of tube.

   The plumber replaced the corroded copper tubes under the sink.

   Surfers paddled out at dawn, hoping to ride the tubes before the wind picked up.

   Note

   The plural simply adds -s and keeps the singular's meanings, from copper piping to a surfer's breaking wave. With containers it takes of: two tubes of toothpaste, three tubes of paint. In Australian slang, tubes are cans of beer. The same spelling is the verb form: a number or article in front marks the noun, a subject in front marks the verb.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular present of tube.

   Each August, half the town tubes down the river on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

   When a patient stops breathing on his own, the ER doctor tubes him within minutes.

   Note

   Three different verbs share this -s form. One takes an object and means fitting or enclosing it in a tube. One takes none: she tubes down the creek on an inner tube. The third is casual hospital talk, where a doctor tubes a patient, short for intubates; formal medical writing keeps the longer word.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The Internet.

   Within an hour the clip had spread across the tubes.

   My connection to the tubes keeps dropping tonight.

   Similarinternet, web, net

   Note

   Only the plural carries this meaning, and almost always with the article: on the tubes, across the tubes. It is online slang said with a grin, at home in casual posts and chat where the joke is the point. In anything serious, the Internet or plain online says the same thing without the irony.

4. 4
   nounslanguncountable

   The inner workings of a person's own body.

   A bowl of fiery chili always clears out my tubes.

   After a week of airport food, his tubes were in a sorry state.

   Similarinsides, guts, system, innards

   Note

   The slang pictures the body as plumbing, and it nearly always takes a possessive: my tubes, his tubes, or dialect me tubes. Clearing your tubes is the phrase to know; in the Chaplins' In Blackberry Time (1987) a man croaks that it is his first time in a week. Keep it for jokes and casual talk; in a clinic, people name the actual organ.

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