water meadow

American  

noun

1. a meadow kept fertile by flooding.

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water meadow British  

noun

1. a meadow that remains fertile by being periodically flooded by a stream

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Etymology

Origin of water meadow

First recorded in 1725–35

Example Sentences

There was no sound close by, but behind and below them, from the water meadow on the nearer bank of the Test, came faintly the shrill, incessant fussing of a pair of sandpipers.

From "Watership Down: A Novel" by Richard Adams

Woundwort, on the other hand, had taken his rabbits into the ditch and then made use of it to get them down to the water meadow, unexposed to further attack from Kehaar.

From "Watership Down: A Novel" by Richard Adams

When she gathered her first posy of lady's-smock in the long water meadow near the mill, the little milk-white flowers said, "Why have you been away from us so long?"

From Notwithstanding by Cholmondeley, Mary

Otherwise he might have reckoned three and a half miles of ploughed field, soppy lane, and water meadow, as more than equivalent to five miles of good turnpike road.

From The Trial by Yonge, Charlotte Mary

Plans of the Water-meadow showing the Territories occupied by Lapwings in 1916 There is a water meadow with which I am familiar, where large numbers resort annually for the purpose of procreation.

From Territory in Bird Life by Howard, H. Eliot