verb, noun
verb (plies, plying, plied, plied)
1 (literary) (of ships, buses, etc.) to travel regularly along a particular route or between two particular places: [V, +adv./prep.] Ferries ply across a narrow strait to the island. * The train plies twice a day between Paris and Madrid. * [VN] canals plied by gondolas and steam boats * ships plying the route between Tripoli and Malta
2 [VN] (formal) to use a tool, especially in a skilful way:
The tailor delicately plied his needle.
IDIOMS
ply your trade (written) to do your work or business:
This is the restaurant where he plied his trade as a cook. * Drug dealers openly plied their trade in front of children.
ply for hire / trade / business (BrE) to look for customers, passengers, etc. in order to do business:
taxis plying for hire outside the theatre
PHRASALVERBS
ply sb with sth
1 to keep giving sb large amounts of sth, especially food and/or drink:
She plied us with tea and cake.
2 to keep asking sb questions:
He plied me with questions from the moment he arrived.
noun [U] (especially in compounds) a measurement of wool, rope, wood, etc. that tells you how thick it is:
four-ply knitting yarn
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for ply is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Does ply appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — ply appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
