water column
Americannoun
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a conceptual vertical section of water, covering the full depth of a body of water and used to explain differences in water pressure, chemical composition, and other properties.
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Textiles. a measure of water resistance.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
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.
However, when researchers examined the nitrogen-based energy budget of these carbon-fixing microbes by sampling the water column, they soon realized that the math did not work out.
From Science Daily ● Dec. 10, 2025
Shortly after fertilization, the larvae become mobile and are capable of coordinated swimming as they disperse in the water column.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 2, 2024
On a global scale, bottom trawling is estimated to kick up as much sediment into the water column as is deposited into oceans from all of the world's rivers.
From Science Daily ● May 8, 2024
But once plastics break down into microplastics and drift throughout the water column in the open ocean, they are virtually impossible to recover.
From National Geographic ● Feb. 21, 2024
Sigurd swung his axe at the water column, cleaving a piece off, and he grabbed at Anya as she scrambled by.
From Anya and the Dragon by Sofiya Pasternack
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.
