Word.ws English Dictionary

rainwater

rainwater noun: rainfall.

Noun

rainwater (usually uncountable, plural rainwaters)

  1. (usually) Rainfall.
    • In early December, as rainwaters had started the monthlong process of flooding mines and washing out rail lines, workers lined up before 1 p.m. at an easy-to-miss storefront depot in Mackay.2011 December 1, Joel Kirkland, “Australia's Record Rains Squeeze World Coal Supplies as Scientists Study Climate Pattern”, in The New York Times
  2. (usually) Water (for a house, etc.) sourced from rain which has not joined a spring, stream or river, pond, lake or sea.
    • Constructed of hard flint stone, which came as ballast from England and is now painted coral white, the house has a fishpond, or catchment, roof, dating from 1788, to collect rainwater.1987 January 18, Paula Deitz, “ISLAND LIVING, ENGLISH STYLE”, in The New York Times

Proper noun capitalized: Rainwater

Rainwater (plural Rainwaters)

  1. A surname.

rainwater meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Bengali

rainwater in Hindi

water sourced from rain
वर्षाजल varṣājal

rainwater in Tamil

water sourced from rain
மழைநீர் maḻainīr, மழைத்தண்ணீர் maḻaittaṇṇīr, மேனீர் mēṉīr

rainwater in Marathi

water sourced from rain
पावसाचे पाणी pāvsāce pāṇī

rainwater in Bengali

বৃষ্টিপাত, নদী
More languagesFewer languages
rainwater in Telugu
వర్షపునీరు
rainwater in Malayalam
മഴവെള്ളം, മഴവെള്ളങ്ങൾ
rainwater in Odia
ବର୍ଷାଜଳ
rainwater in Sanskrit
सलिल salila
rainwater in Arabic
مِيَاه اَلْأَمْطَار miyāh al-ʔamṭār
rainwater in Indonesian
air hujan
rainwater in Vietnamese
nước mưa

Examples of rainwater in a sentence

  • They kept a barrel to store rainwater that has run off the roof.
  • When he was in the rainforest, he lived on bugs and rainwater.
  • The dog survived three weeks on rainwater.

All 22 example sentences with rainwater

Forms of rainwater

Noun
pluralrainwaters
alternative formrain water
Proper noun
pluralRainwaters

Origin of rainwater

From Middle English reinwater, from Old English reġnwæter, equivalent to rain + water. Cognate with West Frisian reinwetter, Dutch regenwater, German Regenwasser, Swedish regnvatten.

Words formed from rainwater

Questions about rainwater

What does rainwater mean?
Rainwater means rainfall.
What is rainwater in Hindi?
Rainwater in Hindi is वर्षाजल (varṣājal). See Rainwater meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is rainwater?
Rainwater can be a noun or a proper noun.
What is the plural of rainwater?
The plural of rainwater is rainwaters.

Words near rainwater in the dictionary

  1. raintrees
  2. rainwash
  3. rainwashed
  4. rainwashes
  5. rainwashing
  6. rainwater
  7. rainwater goods
  8. rainwaters
  9. rainwear
  10. rainworm
  11. rainworms

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rainwater (page history and authors); Rainwater (page history and authors); rainwater (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); rainwater (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); rainwater (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); rainwater (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); सलिल (Sanskrit) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-rainwater.wav.

Cite this entry: “rainwater.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rainwater. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.