vessels

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of vessel.

   Several cargo vessels waited offshore for a berth at the port.

   Damaged vessels in the retina can lead to vision loss over time.

   Note

   One plural serves almost every kind of vessel: ships and submarines, aircraft and spacecraft, cups and pitchers, and the tubes that carry fluid through an animal or plant. The obsolete dialect sense of dishes and cutlery is the exception, because it was uncountable and had no plural. Context sorts out the rest: cargo vessels wait at a port, and blood vessels branch through the eye. The same spelling is also the verb form meaning 'puts into a vessel.'

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of vessel.

   Note

   A transitive verb stands behind this form: to put into a vessel. It always takes a direct object, as when a town vessels its rainwater or a conservator vessels a specimen. Word order tells it apart from the familiar plural noun. Here it follows a singular subject and comes before its object. The noun names the containers, and this form says what someone does with them.

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