Feels

How to spell feels

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce feels

What does feels mean?

1. verbPerceives something through touch or the senses, or experiences a particular emotion or physical sensation (he/she/it form of 'feel').

Feels in a sentence

• The wool jumper feels soft against the skin.

• She always feels nervous before a big presentation.

Where does feels come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the third-person singular present form of the verb 'feel', which descends from the Old English felan, meaning 'to touch, perceive, or experience through the senses'. That verb came from a Proto-Germanic root foljan, and it has cousins in the Dutch voelen and the German fuhlen, both also meaning 'to feel'. The deeper sense traces back to an ancestral idea of 'to touch with the palm of the hand', which is why the word covers both physical touch and inner emotion in modern English. The spelling has stayed remarkably steady: the long 'ee' vowel is simply written with a double e, and the only twist for spellers is remembering it is a single straightforward word, not 'feals' or 'fealls'. In casual modern usage the plural-looking noun 'feels' also arose, as in being moved by 'all the feels', borrowing the same form for a sense of strong emotion.

How the word is built

• feel (from Old English felan: to perceive by touch)
• -s (third-person singular present marker)