water column

noun

plural water columns

1

: a vertical expanse of water stretching between the surface and the floor of a body of water

Shallow feeders, sea lions work the top 600 feet of the water column for hake, rock-fish, herring, sardines … and squid, but opportunistically capturing anything that happens by.

—Downs Matthews

Only a few animals of the water column above would have died and settled into the sediments below during the short time when the mudslide was coalescing into a layer of sediment in the stagnant basin.

—Stephen Jay Gould

2

: a vertical pipe with valves and spout for delivering water to a locomotive tender

Examples of water column in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The tubes are not much longer than an individual cell, and Prochlorococcus, in particular, is thought to spread out in the water column. —Veronique Greenwood, WIRED, 9 Feb. 2025

The iceberg had been stuck in a rotating water column near the South Orkney Islands since April 2024, according to Andrew Meijers of the British Antarctic Survey. —Doyle Rice, USA TODAY, 28 Jan. 2025

Manatees conserve energy during cold weather by resting at the bottom of springs, in the water column or at the surface. —Jennifer Borresen, USA TODAY, 19 Jan. 2025

Below these icy blocks were layers of stratified water columns at least 39 feet deep. —Andrew Paul, Popular Science, 5 Dec. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1845, in the meaning defined at sense 1