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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A sudden overflow of a stream resulting from a heavy rain or a thaw.
  2. n. A stream of fresh water that empties into a body of salt water.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A small stream of fresh water; a brook.
  2. n. A flood or overflowing of a river, by reason of heavy rains or melted snow; an inundation, especially one of a comparatively moderate extent: same as fresh, n., 1.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A flood resulting from heavy rain or a spring thaw. Whereas heavy rain often causes a flash flood, a spring thaw event is generally a more incremental process, depending upon local climate and topography. The term freshet is most commonly used to describe a spring thaw resulting from snow and ice melt in rivers located in the northern latitudes of North America, particularly Canada, where rivers are frozen each winter and thaw during the spring. A spring freshet can sometimes last several weeks on large river systems, resulting in significant inundation of flood plains as the snow pack melts in the river's watershed. Spring freshets associated with thaw events are sometimes accompanied by ice jams which can cause flash floods.
  2. n. a small stream, especially one flowing into the sea

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. A stream of fresh water.
  2. n. A flood or overflowing of a stream caused by heavy rains or melted snow; a sudden inundation.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. the occurrence of a water flow resulting from sudden rain or melting snow

Examples

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Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘freshet’.

Comments

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  • bilby
    If I could see the weedy mussels
    Crusting the wrecked and rotting hulls,
    Hear once again the hungry crying
    Overhead, of the wheeling gulls;
    Feel once again the shanty straining
    Under the turning of the tide,
    Fear once again the rising freshet,
    Dread the bell in the fog outside,
    I should be happy!

    - Edna St. Vincent Millay, 'Exiled'. Sep 21, 2009

  • yarb The river-bed was here about a mile and a half broad and entirely covered with shingle over which the river ran in many winding channels, looking, when seen from above, like a tangled skein of ribbon, and glistening in the sun. We knew that it was liable to very sudden and heavy freshets; but even had we not known it, we could have seen it by the snags of trees, which must have been carried long distances, and by the mass of vegetable and mineral debris which was banked against their lower side, showing that at times the whole river-bed must be covered with a roaring torrent many feet in depth and of ungovernable fury.

    - Samuel Butler, Erewhon Jul 17, 2008

‘freshet’ has been looked up 1544 times, loved by 1 person, added to 17 lists, commented on 2 times, and has a Scrabble score of 13.