Noun

(-)

English plurals

(plural only) The timbers of shipyard stocks that slope into the water and along which a ship or large boat is launched.

* {{quote-book

, year=1912 , year_published= , edition= , editor= , author=Fredrick A. Talbot , title=Steamship Conquest of the World , chapter= citation , genre= , publisher= , isbn= , page=36 , passage= By the time the Mauretania was ready for launching a total weight of 16,800 tons was standing in the berth, and this represented the heaviest weight that had ever been sent down the ways up to that time. }}

(plural only) The longitudinal guiding surfaces on the bed of a planer, lathe, etc. along which a table or carriage moves.

(informal) A distance.

* 2007, Aryn Kyle, The God of Animals , Simon and Schuster, ISBN 1416533249, page 41,

“We still have a ways to go with patterns.”

“You still have a ways to go with everything,” I told him.

Noun

(en noun)

A course of action to be followed regularly; a standard procedure.

A set of normal procedures, often performed mechanically.

:

*

*:It is never possible to settle down to the ordinary routine of life at sea until the screw begins to revolve. There is an hour or two, after the passengers have embarked, which is disquieting and fussy.

A set piece of an entertainer's act.

(label) A set of instructions designed to perform a specific task; a subroutine.