fish ladder


noun
  1. a series of ascending pools constructed to enable salmon or other fish to swim upstream around or over a dam.

Origin of fish ladder

1
An Americanism dating back to 1860–65

Words Nearby fish ladder

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use fish ladder in a sentence

  • Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent each year on improving fish ladders, hatchery programs, trucking and barging fish to get around the dam system, but it hasn’t been enough.

  • For fish swimming upstream, fish ladders on the side of the dams have been repeatedly improved to allow salmon migrating from the ocean to propel themselves from concrete eddy to concrete eddy upstream.

    The Fight to Save the Salmon | By Brian Bennett/Lapwai, Idaho with Photographs by Kiliii Yüyan | October 18, 2021 | Time
  • There's more good water—two miles of it—to the east, and all it needed was a fish-ladder around Scaur Falls.

    The Flaming Jewel | Robert W. Chambers

British Dictionary definitions for fish ladder

fish ladder

noun
  1. a row of ascending pools or weirs connected by short falls to allow fish to pass barrages or dams

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012