WATER LEVEL

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does water level mean? 

• WATER LEVEL (noun)
  The noun WATER LEVEL has 4 senses:

1. the level of the surface of a body of water

2. underground surface below which the ground is wholly saturated with water

3. a line corresponding to the surface of the water when the vessel is afloat on an even keel; often painted on the hull of a ship

4. a water gauge that shows the level by showing the surface of the water in a trough or U-shaped tube

  Familiarity information: WATER LEVEL used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WATER LEVEL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The level of the surface of a body of water

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("water level" is a kind of...):

elevation (distance of something above a reference point (such as sea level))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "water level"):

sea level (level of the ocean's surface (especially that halfway between mean high and low tide); used as a standard in reckoning land elevation or sea depth)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Underground surface below which the ground is wholly saturated with water

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Synonyms:

groundwater level; water level; water table

Context example:

spring rains had raised the water table

Hypernyms ("water level" is a kind of...):

formation; geological formation ((geology) the geological features of the earth)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A line corresponding to the surface of the water when the vessel is afloat on an even keel; often painted on the hull of a ship

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Synonyms:

water level; water line; waterline

Hypernyms ("water level" is a kind of...):

line (a spatial location defined by a real or imaginary unidimensional extent)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "water level"):

load line; Plimsoll; Plimsoll line; Plimsoll mark (waterlines to show the level the water should reach when the ship is properly loaded)

Sense 4

Meaning:

A water gauge that shows the level by showing the surface of the water in a trough or U-shaped tube

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("water level" is a kind of...):

water gage; water gauge; water glass (gauge for indicating the level of water in e.g. a tank or boiler or reservoir)

 Context examples 

Paris has had flooding similar to the June 2016 inundation when water levels reached more than six meters (20 feet).

(France's Flooding Rains Examined by NASA’s IMERG, NASA)

The findings are based on measurements of methane emissions taken from 2,300 trees spread across a number of locations surrounding the rivers Negro, Solimões, Amazonas and Tapajós — where the water level can flood trees by up to 10 metres.

(Amazon trees are major source of methane emission, SciDev.Net)

Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the University of Florida developed a method to measure the different isotopes of water trapped in gypsum, a mineral that forms during times of drought when the water level is lowered, in Lake Chichancanab in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula where the Maya were based.

(Scientists measure severity of drought during the Maya collapse, University of Cambridge)

From the point the shore curved away, more and more to the south and west, until at last it disclosed a cove within the cove, a little land-locked harbour, the water level as a pond, broken only by tiny ripples where vagrant breaths and wisps of the storm hurtled down from over the frowning wall of rock that backed the beach a hundred feet inshore.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)