Word.ws English Dictionary

waterhole

waterhole noun: a depression in which water collects, especially one where wild animals come to drink.

Noun

waterhole (plural waterholes)

  1. A depression in which water collects, especially one where wild animals come to drink.
    • From habit the sheep would head for the river, but, though it was early spring, the winter had been droughty, and the river was only a string of dangerous water-holes.1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 268
  2. (informal) A watering hole; a place where people meet to drink and talk.
  3. A part of the electromagnetic spectrum, between the regions where hydrogen and hydroxyl radiate, that is relatively quiet in terms of radio astronomy.

waterhole meaning in Kannada and Arabic

waterhole in Kannada

ನೀರುಗುಂಡಿ, ನೀರುತುಂಬಿದ ಹಳ್ಳ

waterhole in Arabic

depression in which water collects
وِرْد wird, مَشْرَع mašraʕ

Forms of waterhole

pluralwaterholes
alternative formwater-hole
alternative formwater hole

Origin of waterhole

* water + hole. * (astronomy): Coined by Bernard Oliver in 1971, in allusion to the idea that this part of the spectrum would be that used by extraterrestrial intelligence to communicate.

Words formed from waterhole

Questions about waterhole

What does waterhole mean?
Waterhole means a depression in which water collects, especially one where wild animals come to drink.
What is waterhole in Kannada?
Waterhole in Kannada is ನೀರುಗುಂಡಿ, ನೀರುತುಂಬಿದ ಹಳ್ಳ. See Waterhole meaning in Kannada.
What part of speech is waterhole?
Waterhole is a noun.
What is the plural of waterhole?
The plural of waterhole is waterholes.

Words near waterhole in the dictionary

  1. waterheading
  2. waterheads
  3. waterhemp
  4. waterhen
  5. waterhens
  6. waterhole
  7. waterholes
  8. waterholic
  9. waterhorse
  10. waterhorses
  11. waterhouse

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: waterhole (page history and authors); waterhole (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

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

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