victims

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of victim.

   Counselors offered support to the victims of the earthquake.

   The scam targeted elderly victims across several states.

   Note

   A regular plural, and the form most readers meet: the victims of a crime or scam, an accident, an illness, a disaster. It carries every shade of the singular, including the sacrificial one, where victims are living beings slain as offerings in a religious rite. The same spelling also serves the rare verb form, so in 'the system victims the poor' the word is a verb, not a noun.

2. 2
   verbnonstandard

   Third-person singular simple present of victim. Nonstandard; the usual verb is victimize.

   Note

   Behind this form stands a verb that is both rare and nonstandard: to victim someone, especially as a ritual sacrifice, meaning simply to victimize. It is transitive, so it always needs an object: the winter victims the weakest animals, not just the winter victims. In most writing, victimizes says the same thing and avoids the nonstandard form.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2