flows

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of flow.

   The river flows past the old mill before reaching the sea.

   Lava flows slowly down the mountainside after each eruption.

   Note

   Every use of the verb is intransitive, so flows never takes a direct object. What follows it is a direction or a source. Water flows down, past or over something, and an idea flows from its cause. A land rich in something flows with it. For the tide it is the partner of ebbs. The form fits only a singular subject: the river flows, but the rivers flow.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of flow.

   The accountant compared the monthly cash flows across the year.

   Engineers studied the air flows around the new wing design.

   Note

   Here flow becomes countable: separate streams, currents or rates that can be set side by side, as in cash flows or tidal flows. The sense of smoothness or continuity stays singular, so a speech has flow, never flows. The spelling is shared with the present-tense verb, and position tells them apart: after an article or adjective, flows is a noun.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2