dams

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of dam.

   A series of concrete dams controls the flow of the river downstream.

   Engineers inspected the aging dams for cracks after the heavy rains.

   Note

   One plural serves every kind of dam. Engineers' dams hold back rivers, a dentist's dams keep a tooth dry, and a blast furnace's dam is the firebrick wall or stone at the front of its hearth. In Australia and South Africa, dams can be the reservoirs themselves, so the word may name the water rather than the wall. In animal breeding, dams are mothers, and that plural is spelled no differently.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of dam.

   The earthen embankment dams the river to create a reservoir for the town.

   Every autumn the farmer dams the creek to flood his cranberry bog.

   Note

   The verb behind this form is transitive: something always dams something, whether a river, a creek or a flow. Because it is spelled exactly like the plural noun, a phrase can look ambiguous until its object appears. In "the beaver dams hold," dams is a noun. In "the beaver dams the stream," the object that follows marks it as the verb.

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