webs

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of web.

   Morning dew clung to the webs strung between the fence posts.

   Investigators traced the tangled webs of shell companies back to a single owner.

   Note

   A plural that moves easily between the concrete and the abstract. The webs in a garden are spun silk, while the webs investigators untangle are networks of people, places or things. Webs can also be plots and schemes, and baseball players have one in each mitt, between thumb and forefinger. The same spelling serves the verb meaning to spin or cover, so context decides which you are reading.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of web.

   Frost webs the windowpane with delicate patterns on cold mornings.

   A network of tiny cracks webs the surface of the old painting.

   Note

   Here one form carries several constructions. Without an object, a spider webs: it builds its web. With an object, something webs a surface by covering it with a network, or webs a victim by entangling it. Avoid it as a plain word for weaving cloth, because that use is obsolete and will read as an error rather than as a choice.

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