headwater

nounC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,694 of 15,258Too rare in one of the two pools to compare — fewer than 20 uses in speech or in writing

Other forms: headwaters

A headwater is the stream at the very source of a river. The headwaters of the Nile, protect the headwaters, high headwater streams.

It is nearly always plural, since a great river begins as many small streams rather than one spring. Damage at the headwaters travels the length of a river, which is why protection starts there.

Definitions of headwater

1nounheadwaterThe stream at the very source of a river.C2
“The headwaters of the river are fed by melting snow high in the mountains.”

headwater is a stream.

Where it comes from

Head plus water, from head in the sense of the top or beginning of something.

From head + water.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

headwater in the wild

A river or stream into which one or many tributary rivers or streams flow has many headwaters, these being all of the individual headwaters of its tributaries.
River source
Ictalurus lupus (the bagre lobo or headwater catfish) is a species of catfish in the family Ictaluridae.
Ictalurus lupus
Flowing west to east, it diverts the headwaters of the Castor and Whitewater rivers and Crooked Creek directly into the Mississippi River south of Cape Girardeau.
Headwater Diversion Channel
Cherry Valley Creek is a 34.1-mile-long headwater tributary of the Susquehanna River in central New York, United States.
Cherry Valley Creek (New York)
A grass valley (also vega and valle) is a meadow located within a forested and relatively small drainage basin such as a headwater.
Grass valley

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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