floods

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of flood.

   Seasonal floods regularly submerge the rice fields along the delta.

   Engineers built the levees after a series of devastating floods.

   Note

   One spelling serves two words. After a number or a determiner, floods is this noun; after a singular subject, it is the verb form. As a plural it covers the singular's range: disasters along a delta, figurative torrents of mail or requests arriving faster than anyone can handle, and, in lighting, a bank of floods, short for floodlights.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of flood.

   Each monsoon season floods the streets of the old quarter within hours.

   The swollen creek floods nearby pastures whenever the snow melts quickly.

   Note

   The -s marks agreement with a singular subject: the river floods, a monsoon floods the streets. The verb can stand alone, as in the creek floods, meaning it overflows, or take an object, as in floods the pastures, meaning it covers them. Figuratively, someone floods a market or an inbox. Online, a user who floods a chat pastes line after line to disrupt the conversation.

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