wells

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of well.

   Several oil wells were capped after the leak was discovered.

   The ancient city was supplied by stone-lined wells throughout its streets.

   Note

   Every noun meaning of well takes the same plain -s plural. That holds for holes drilled for oil or natural gas, springs where water surfaces on its own, small depressions that hold liquid, and the figurative wells of supply. The spelling is shared with the verb of rising liquid, and position tells them apart: after a number or an article it is the noun (three wells), and after a singular subject it is the verb.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of well.

   A clear stream wells from the rocks near the mountain trail.

   Anger wells inside him each time the subject comes up.

   Note

   A verb that never takes an object. Either something wells from a source, as a stream wells from the rocks, or a surface wells with what seeps out of it, as a face wells with joy. Feelings borrow the image readily, as when anger wells inside someone. Only the verb carries this ending: the adverb well, meaning competently or fully, has no -s form.

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