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slack water

noun
  1. a period when a body of water is between tides.
  2. water that is free of currents.
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Origin of slack water

First recorded in 1760–70
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for slack water

Historical Examples

  • No, sir; it's slack-water; or, rather, the ebb is just beginning to make.

    The Two Admirals

    J. Fenimore Cooper

  • Every night the river falls from three to six inches, and there are long stretches of slack-water.

    Afloat on the Ohio

    Reuben Gold Thwaites

  • Then we went down the river as far as the Elbow, where we waited in the slack-water to hail up-bound steamboats.

    Raftmates

    Kirk Munroe

  • Glen had swum and fished in it, and boated on it, until he knew its every current and slack-water pool.

    Campmates

    Kirk Munroe

  • They fish around the 'slack-water,' catching the last of the ebb and the first of the flow, and hence drift but little either way.

    The Hudson

    Wallace Bruce

British Dictionary definitions for slack water

slack water

noun
  1. the period of still water around the turn of the tide, esp at low tide
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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