reeds

1. a tall, slender-leaved plant of the grass family, which grows in water or on marshy ground.
2. a weak or impressionable person.

   the jurors were mere reeds in the wind

3. a piece of thin cane or metal, sometimes doubled, which vibrates in a current of air to produce the sound of various musical instruments, as in the mouthpiece of a clarinet or oboe or at the base of some organ pipes.

   a reed instrument

4. an electrical contact used in a magnetically operated switch or relay.

   the permanent magnet closes the reeds and contacts together

   a reed relay

5. a comblike implement (originally made from reed or cane) used by a weaver to separate the threads of the warp and correctly position the weft.
6. a set of semi-cylindrical adjacent mouldings like reeds laid together.

Old English hrēod, of West Germanic origin; related to Dutch riet and German Ried .