open water

noun

plural open waters

: water that is clear of obstacles to passage or view : water that is open (see open entry 1 sense 7a)

The word marsh conjures up a mental picture of a soggy, flat area filled with cattails and other herbaceous vegetation, with ducks sitting on patches of open water.

—Robert H. Mohlenbrock

often, specifically : water that is free of ice

When the river froze in the fall, a mile of open water had been left between two mighty jams.

—Jack London

Polynyas were areas of persistent open water, found throughout the circumpolar arctic, places kept ice-free by currents and wind patterns.

—David R. Masiel

Because the penguins feed in the ocean, they typically set up colonies near open water and must establish new nests when the coastline becomes covered in … ice.

—Science News

Examples of open water in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

But in recent years, there is much more open water and the ice is thinner and more broken up — a bunch of individual floes amidst open water instead of small cracks in a largely consolidated sheet of ice. —Tom Yulsman, Discover Magazine, 26 Sep. 2024

While taking a dip in the ocean to avoid heatstroke, Pen suddenly became agitated and swam through a hole in her enclosure out into open waters. —Nodoka Katsura, CNN, 12 Sep. 2024

The women’s 10-kilometer open water swimming race is on Wednesday, August 7 at 11:30 P.M. MST on USA Network and streaming. —Frederick Dreier, Outside Online, 26 July 2024

At the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, Grimes became the first woman in U.S. history to compete in both pool and open water events during the same Olympics. —Casey Murphy, Forbes, 7 Oct. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1625, in the meaning defined above