freshwater

or fresh-wa·ter

[ fresh-waw-ter, -wot-er ]

adjective

1. of or living in water that is fresh or not salt:

   freshwater fish.

2. accustomed to fresh water only, and not to the sea:

   a freshwater sailor.

3. small, provincial, or little known:

   a freshwater college.

4. Obsolete. untrained or of little experience.

freshwater

/ ˈfrɛʃˌwɔːtə /

noun

1. of, relating to, or living in fresh water
2. (esp of a sailor who has not sailed on the sea) unskilled or inexperienced
3. small and little known

   a freshwater school

freshwater

/ frĕsh′wô′tər /

1. Consisting of or living in water that is not salty.

Word History and Origins

Origin of freshwater¹

First recorded in 1520–30; fresh + water

Example Sentences

The region is often called Earth’s third pole, because the stores of ice and snow in the Himalayan watershed amount to the largest reserves of freshwater outside of the polar regions.

From Science News

The size of the freshwater amphipods that Baikal seals eat, she says, “is much smaller than other krill or amphipod species consumed by seals.”

From Science News

Researchers had previously suspected that Ancestral Puebloans once exploited the area’s lava tubes for freshwater.

From Science News

Southern California doesn’t have enough freshwater sources to begin with.

From Voice of San Diego

With no land to cultivate, and no jobs available, Animesh has taken to fishing in the network of freshwater creeks that swirl through the delta’s jungles.

From MIT Technology Review

Turtles, fish, ospreys and rare freshwater sharks and sawfish thrive there.

From The Daily Beast

Immovable Israeli colonies sit atop Palestinian freshwater reserves in the West Bank.

From The Daily Beast

Occasionally freshwater or even marine forms may be found in an olian deposit, but they will be exceptional.

From Project Gutenberg

At the summit of the Cromer 'Forest' Series, however, is a true freshwater bed.

From Project Gutenberg

The freshwater turtle of the Amazon, of which there are various species, is one of the most useful of reptiles.

From Project Gutenberg

Slowly this sea shallowed, giving rise to the alternating estuarine marine and freshwater deposits of the Coal Measures.

From Project Gutenberg

But they were only freshwater sailors; since, though they lived on the water, they avoided the open sea.

From Project Gutenberg