reservoir
Americannoun
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reservoirs
plural
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a natural or artificial place where water is collected and stored for use, especially water for supplying a community, irrigating land, furnishing power, etc.
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a receptacle or chamber for holding a liquid or fluid.
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Geology. pool16
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Biology. a cavity or part that holds some fluid or secretion.
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a place where anything is collected or accumulated in great amount.
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a large or extra supply or stock; reserve.
a reservoir of knowledge.
noun
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a natural or artificial lake or large tank used for collecting and storing water, esp for community water supplies or irrigation
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a receptacle for storing gas, esp one attached to a stove
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biology a vacuole or cavity in an organism, containing a secretion or some other fluid
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anatomy another name for cisterna
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a place where a great stock of anything is accumulated
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a large supply of something; reserve
a reservoir of talent
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A natural or artificial pond or lake used for the storage of water.
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An underground mass of rock or sediment that is porous and permeable enough to allow oil or natural gas to accumulate in it.
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An organism that is the host for a parasitic pathogen or that directly or indirectly transmits a pathogen to which it is immune.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of reservoir
1680–90; < French réservoir, equivalent to réserv ( er ) to reserve + -oir -ory 2
Explanation
The word reservoir refers to a place where large amounts of water get stored. It can also be used to describe great amounts of other things, such as when you refer to a trivia expert as a reservoir of useless knowledge. The word reservoir comes from the French réservoir, which further derives from the Old French reserver, meaning "to reserve." Knowing this, it makes sense that the meaning evolved into a place, either man-made or natural, where water is stored or "reserved," usually for distribution for drinking, irrigating, and generating power. Remembering the related word reserve might also help in both the spelling and pronunciation of the word, as reserve is spelled (and pronounced) with "er," the same as "reservoir."
Vocabulary lists containing reservoir
Persepolis
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Africa - Introductory
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The Water Cycle - Introductory
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
However, reservoir storage and groundwater levels continue to decline.
From BBC ● Sep. 9, 2026
“When he has his tail up, he’s happy,” Atrakchi said on a recent hike overlooking the reservoir.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2026
In other words, star formation dropped dramatically without a comparable disappearance of the universe's HI reservoir.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 3, 2026
The canal authority plans to build a new 4,600-hectare reservoir on the Indio River to the west as a way to limit the effects of future droughts on operations.
From Barron's ● Sep. 3, 2026
Chase ran inside and fetched the small bit of water left in the stove reservoir.
From "Hattie Big Sky" by Kirby Larson
Those branches may have helped establish new reservoirs of Yersinia pestis in wild rodent populations.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 20, 2026
The aqueduct seemed to make the city’s founding river not just obsolete but dangerous, so construction began on catch basins, dams and reservoirs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 17, 2026
The practice was banned in 2020, but the bare faces that cutting left behind are still collapsing and eroding today, washing sediment down into reservoirs.
From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2026
It operates using rainwater that collects in two reservoirs, whose levels have dropped due to the onset of El Nino.
From Barron's ● Sep. 7, 2026
He spent years traveling across central Africa in search of the reservoirs of Ebola and Marburg viruses.
From "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
