water tower

American  

noun

1. a vertical pipe or tower into which water is pumped to a height sufficient to maintain a desired pressure for firefighting, distribution to customers, etc.

2. a fire-extinguishing apparatus for throwing a stream of water on the upper parts of a tall burning building.

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water tower British  

noun

1. a reservoir or storage tank mounted on a tower-like structure at the summit of an area of high ground in a place where the water pressure would otherwise be inadequate for distribution at a uniform pressure

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Etymology

Origin of water tower

First recorded in 1880–85

Example Sentences

The video closed with “Top Gun” actor Tom Cruise perched atop the Paramount water tower.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 16, 2026

Warner distributed photos of Zaslav walking the Warner Bros. studio lot in Burbank with Sarandos and Peters, smiling in front of the studio’s famed water tower.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 28, 2026

The town of 2,000 also features a full Pusser museum, the Buford Pusser fairgrounds, a water tower with Buford’s image on it, and the Buford Pusser Highway.

From Slate • Nov. 6, 2025

If you’re traveling on I-65 north of Montgomery, you can’t miss it: Exit 212, where a 120-foot-tall, peach-topped water tower — realistically painted and impossible to ignore — beckons you into peach paradise.

From Salon • Jul. 9, 2025

That maybe it was my own daddy who had landed in this town and found a friend in Ned and made fireworks and blew up a water tower and had people who cared about him.

From "Moon Over Manifest" by Clare Vanderpool