Definition of "dells" [dells]

• The rapids of a river. (noun-plural)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Before us the dells are abloom, and a leaping brook calls after,"
• "Charming houses stand in the "dells," that is, in the umbrageous cul-de-sacs where the graded streets terminate in bluffs too bold to be penetrated."
• "In later years, she encouraged a succession of admirers to scramble after her over barbed wire and through hedge bottoms to find picnic places and hidden bowers and dells and burrows."