rolls

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of roll.

   Diners reached for the dinner rolls before the soup arrived.

   The drummer opened the song with a few quick rolls.

   Note

   A plural that gathers very different things under one spelling: gymnastic tumbles, heavy cylinders dragged across a field to break clods, the revolving rollers of a rolling mill, deep reverberating sounds. In metalworking the plural is often the natural form, because those cylinders work as a set and the metal is pressed between the rolls. Context, not grammar, tells the reader which thing is meant.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of roll.

   A loose marble rolls across the tilted floor whenever the door opens.

   The chef rolls each piece of sushi tightly before slicing it.

   Note

   One verb form doing double duty: the same rolls serves when the subject itself moves (the barrel rolls downhill) and when it moves something else (she rolls the barrel). Particles steer the meaning. With up it turns to wrapping and binding, as when someone rolls up a bandage. With out or forth it turns to speech, as when an orator rolls out sonorous phrases.

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