oxbow

[oks-boh]

noun

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.

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. 2019

British Dictionary definitions for oxbow-lake

oxbow

noun

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

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

Word Origin and History for oxbow-lake

oxbow

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.

oxbow-lake in Science

oxbow

[ŏks′bō′]

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.