Catchment

//ˈkatʃmənt// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Any structure or land feature which catches and holds water; the collection of such water. attributive, often

    "Do you think that there ought to be some board or some authority for each catchment basin, which must be appointed with adequate powers to prevent the pollution of streams?"

  2. 2
    a structure in which water is collected (especially a natural drainage area) wordnet
  3. 3
    A catchment area, or the people it serves.

    "The Hospital Plan first set out the objective: a network of large district general hospitals, each providing specialised medical and surgical facilities for a catchment of 200,000 to 300,000 population[…]."

Verb
  1. 1
    To divide into catchment areas.

    "the catchmenting of mental health services"

Synonyms

All synonyms
watershed

Example

More examples

"They are pumping freshwater from the river catchment."

Etymology

From catch + -ment.

Related phrases

catchment areacatchment basincatchment area

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.