Word Origin
a U -shaped piece of wood placed under and around the neck of an ox with its upper ends in the bar of the yoke. Physical Geography , Geology a bow-shaped bend in a river, or the land embraced by it. Also called oxbow lake . a bow-shaped lake formed in a former channel of a river. Show More
Origin of oxbow Middle English word dating back to
1325–75; see origin at
ox ,
bow2 Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
British Dictionary definitions for oxbow-lake a U-shaped piece of wood fitted under and around the neck of a harnessed ox and attached to the yoke Also called: oxbow lake , cutoff a small curved lake lying on the flood plain of a river and constituting the remnant of a former meander Show More
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for oxbow-lake n. also ox-bow , mid-14c., "wooden collar for an ox," from ox + bow (n.1). Meaning "semicircular bend in a river" is from 1797, American English (New England); meaning "curved lake left after an oxbow meander has been cut off by a change in the river course" is from 1898. The reference is to similarity of shape.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
A sharp, U-shaped bend in a river. The bend is so sharp that only a narrow neck of land is left between the two parts of the river. Show More
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
