walls

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of wall.

   The thick stone walls kept the house cool through the summer.

   Cracks appeared in the walls after the earthquake.

   Note

   A regular plural with an exact twin: the same spelling is also the verb form in "she walls up the doorway." Only the grammar tells them apart. After an article or adjective (the thick walls, the city walls), it is the noun. After a singular subject, it is the verb "to enclose". The noun plural covers every sense of wall, from the ramparts around a city to the partitions inside a house.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of wall.

   The new floor plan walls off the kitchen from the dining area.

   The architect's design walls in the courtyard on all four sides.

   Note

   The verb usually travels with a particle: a mason walls up an old doorway, and a fortress walls in a harbor. The same form also serves narrower verbs. Among gamers, a player who walls is using a wallhack to see through solid surfaces. On a ship, a sailor walls a rope's end by tying a wall knot. Context sorts them out, and enclosing is the default reading.

3. 3
   nounslangUS

   Slang for the vagina.

   The crude joke about her walls left the whole table groaning.

   His lyrics, full of boasts about her walls, scandalized the radio censors.

   Note

   American slang built on an anatomical image: the walls of the vagina stand for the whole. It belongs to explicit, joking or boastful sexual talk and has no place in polite speech. In a clinical setting, "the vaginal walls" means the anatomy itself, and nobody hears the slang there. Outside the US, listeners may simply hear the ordinary plural and miss the meaning.

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