Refine this word faster
Waterworks
//ˈwɔːtəˌwəːks// noun, slang
Definitions
Noun
- 1 The water supply system of a district, town, city, or other place, including reservoirs, pipes, and pumps.
- 2 plural of waterwork form-of, plural
- 3 workplace where water is stored and purified and distributed for a community wordnet
- 4 Any single facility, such as a filtration plant or pumping station, within such a system.
"She is employed by a waterworks at the outskirts of the city."
- 5 a public utility that provides water wordnet
Show 5 more definitions
- 6 Often in the form turn on the waterworks: crying or tears, especially in a way that is considered manipulative or over-emotional. figuratively, informal
"She turned on the waterworks when we told her the old man was dead, but she was asking questions about the will soon enough."
- 7 Rain. figuratively, informal
- 8 The genitourinary system. British, euphemistic, figuratively
- 9 A hydraulic apparatus by which a supply of water is furnished for ornamental purposes; also, an ornamental fountain or waterfall. historical
"Resolving to possess myself in some quiet if it might be, in a time of so great jealosy, I built by my Brother's permission a study, made a fishpond, an island, and some other solitudes and retirements, at Wotton, which gave the first occasion of improving them to those water-works and gardens which afterwards succeeded them."
- 10 Engineering works relating to the conveyance and flow of fluids (principally water), such as the collection and distribution of water, drainage, irrigation, etc. archaic
Etymology
Etymology 1
From water + works (“machine, mechanism; factory or factories”).
Etymology 2
From waterwork + -s.
See also for "waterworks"
Next best steps
Mini challenge
Unscramble this word: waterworks