wilds

1. 1
   noun

   An uncultivated, uninhabited region untouched by development; wilderness.

   The expedition vanished somewhere in the wilds of northern Canada.

   Wolves still roam the wilds beyond the settled valleys.

   Similarwilderness, backwoods, backcountry, bush, hinterland

   Note

   A word that usually comes with a place attached, through an of-phrase: the wilds of northern Canada. Matt Bai, writing in 2012, has the Clintons "banished to the wilds of Westchester County," and there the phrase stretches past true wilderness to any place felt to be far from the center of things. Used that way it carries a wry, mock-dramatic edge.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of wild.

   Captive-bred condors were reintroduced to the wilds of the canyon.

   These rare orchids flourish in the wilds but wither in gardens.

   Note

   Here the singular and the plural part ways. With the definite article, the wild names a condition, the undomesticated life of an animal, as in released into the wild. The plural names a place instead: a wilderness, as in the wilderness sense. So an animal lives in the wild, but an explorer heads into the wilds. The singular wild can also stand as a variant spelling of weald.

3. 3
   verbslang

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of wild.

   Whenever the DJ plays that song, the whole crowd wilds out.

   She usually stays calm, but she wilds out when people cut in line.

   Note

   The verb behind this form is slang, and it is intransitive, so it takes no object. Its harshest meaning is a gang's random assault and robbery in a city, so it needs care. The milder "acting strangely" meaning lives only in the forms wilding and wildin', so wilds cannot carry it. The same spelling also serves as the plural noun, as in the wilderness sense.

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