Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To supply (dry land) with water by means of ditches, pipes, or streams; water artificially.
- v. To wash out (a body cavity or wound) with water or a medicated fluid.
- v. To make fertile or vital as if by watering.
- v. To supply land with water artificially.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To pass a liquid over or through; moisten by a flow of water or other liquid.
- Specifically—2. To water, as land, by causing a stream or streams to be distributed over it. See irrigation.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To water; to wet; to moisten with running or dropping water; to bedew.
- v. (Agric.) To water, as land, by causing a stream to flow upon, over, or through it, as in artificial channels.
- v. (Med.) To rinse (a wound, infected area, etc.) with a flow or spray of a liquid.
WordNet 3.0
- v. supply with a constant flow or sprinkling of some liquid, for the purpose of cooling, cleansing, or disinfecting
- v. supply with water, as with channels or ditches or streams
Etymologies
- From Latin irrigare. (Wiktionary)
- Latin irrigāre, irrigāt- : in-, in; see in-2 + rigāre, to water. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Today, one of the world's oldest settled areas, where men first learned to irrigate, is a man-made desert.”
“These rivers irrigate the acacias, the bright green rice fields and other human endeavor.”
“They don't have to irrigate in the valley of the moon, unless for alfalfa and such crops.”
“By the way, same solution, just a little bit stronger, can be used to gargle throat and irrigate nostrils at the first signs of cold or flu.”
“The Babylonians were using wind to pump water to irrigate crops 4000 years ago.”
“The State Council, China's highest administrative organ, issued a 10-point plan pledging small amounts of cash to irrigate wheat fields, plant wheat and corn sprouts, and treat crop disease, as well as a $180 million fund to buy equipment and more than $1 billion for drought-alleviation works.”
“Mr. Gao is also worried about the $6.40 or so he needs to spend to power a diesel pump to irrigate each hectare.”
“It pledged cash to irrigate wheat fields and to plant wheat and corn, as well as money to buy equipment.”
“In the 1900s this might have been practical, but in the age of relatively cheap diesel fuel it is slightly easier to pump from a gas station than plant, fertilize, irrigate, spray insecticide, etc. a crop, for example cotton for the cottonseed oil.”
“You put something on marginal land, don't irrigate it and you get a marginal crop.”
The Wall Street Journal: Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Air
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘irrigate’.
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Written on Water
An eclectic list of words pertaining to and describing water.
"...I am the faithful husband of the rain,
I love the water of wells and springs
and the taste of roofs in the...water, rain, cistern, thirst, dead-water, eddy-water, surge, flood, ebb, fluid, flow, liquor amnii and 202 more...
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Down on the Farm
All things farm and agriculture related.
barn, tractor, cow, hay, horse, pig, corn, plough, irrigation, subsidies, crops, plant and 260 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6689 more...
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awash
abluent, astringent, ablutomania, ablutionary, lavage, maundy, elution, lustration, rinse, nipter, elute, clysmic and 34 more...
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Underwordied
Words that, despite being rare, are hardly wordied.
lych gate, lych, rynt, vicinal, vicine, entheal, enthean, demoded, coextensive, miche, prosiliency, agalmatophilia and 119 more...
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5-0
Hecko, words! I’m so happy I’ve found you. I want to keep you all and never want to lose you again. I hope you like it here.
amscray, thistledown, tine, tinsel, pungent, snarl, wail, lanky, viscid, dawdle, luminous, stow and 2719 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for irrigate.
Telofy “When we landed here, it seemed natural to us to direct our lander to the shore of our bay, since we thought the water we saw was potable and might be used for irrigation.” – Gene Wolfe, On Blue’s Waters Nov 5, 2009