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

Advanced blue-green optical communications penetrate the water column to communicate with submerged submarines without requiring them to deploy compromise-prone antennas. — Rohit Jha, Forbes.com, 1 Oct. 2026

Before my group of divers reaches the sandy bottom 90 feet down, lemon sharks arrive to greet us, moving up through the water column for a closer look. — Terry Ward, Travel + Leisure, 26 Sep. 2026

Deep Fission says the water column and surrounding rock could provide containment, operating pressure, heat transfer, and emergency cooling. — Neetika Walter, Interesting Engineering, 10 Sep. 2026

An oscillating water column uses the rise and fall of waves to push and pull air through a turbine to generate electricity. — ABC News, 26 Aug. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1845, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for water column

• collum
• sholom
• slalom
• solemn