woods

1. 1
   noun

   A dense group of trees covering a fairly small area, usually smaller than a forest.

   A narrow trail wound through the woods toward the river.

   Deer often shelter in the woods during the heat of the day.

   Similarforest, woodland

   Note

   Grammatically plural even when it names a single tract of trees. Robert Frost's "The woods are lovely, dark and deep" (1923) shows the usual agreement. Singular agreement does occur: C. R. Tillotson's The Care and Improvement of the Farm Woods (1939) speaks of "establishing a woods". But this woods and a woods remain uncommon. The safe choice is a plural verb.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of wood.

   Cabinetmakers often combine several woods in a single piece.

   The shop stocks exotic woods imported from around the world.

   Note

   A plural that only fits the countable meanings of wood. The material itself takes no plural, so here woods means kinds of timber, the way a cabinetmaker mixes several in one piece. It can also mean a golfer's clubs, whose heads were traditionally wooden. Keep it apart from the stand of trees: the spelling is the same, but that noun has grammar of its own.

3. 3
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of wood.

   Note

   The verb behind this form works in two ways. Transitively, someone woods a slope by planting it with trees, or woods a vessel by supplying it with fuel. Intransitively, a vessel simply woods, taking on its own supply. A singular subject in front usually separates this form from the plural noun that shares its spelling.

4. 4
   nounbefore a noun

   In military planning, terrain of trees in full leaf (coniferous or moderately dense deciduous forest) treated as a category for how chemical agents behave.

   Planners marked the woods on the map because dense foliage would slow the spread of any released agent.

   In the woods, the canopy held the vapor close to the ground for hours after the attack.

   Note

   Chemical-defense planning sorts terrain by how it holds a released agent, and woods is one of its categories, set apart from open ground. It is used mostly as a modifier in front of another noun. The test is foliage, not species: conifers qualify, and medium-dense deciduous stands qualify only when they are in full leaf.

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