irrigation

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments  · 
“
They had seen the Roosevelt influence adding to the resources of life--irrigation, and waterways, conservation, the Panama Canal, the "country life" movement.

View all »
Definitions (8)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (5)

  1. The act of watering or moistening; the covering of anything with water or other liquid for the purpose of making or keeping it moist, as in local medical treatment; especially, the distribution of water over the surface of land to promote the growth of plants. The irrigation of land is often artificially effected by elaborate and costly means, consisting of machinery for raising the water from streams or reservoirs, and ditches through which to distribute it; and many regions depend upon such artificial irrigation for their productiveness. By irrigation is meant the application of the waters of a running stream by a riparian proprietor in the cultivation of his land by artificial means, and not the overflowing of its natural banks by periodical or extraordinary freshets or swellings of the stream beyond the customary quantity flowing therein. Washburn, Eas. and Serv. (3d ed.), p. 308.
  2. Bedwork irrigation a method of irrigation especially applicable to level ground, in which the earth is thrown into beds or ridges.
  3. Upward irrigation a method of irrigation in which the water rises upward through the soil instead of being carried off through drains, as in the ordinary circumstances.
2 more from this dictionary »

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (2)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

  • Then settlers introduced irrigation, the fruit trees cooled the air, and, within 50 years, summer temperatures dropped 5°F. —  Climate Progress
  • "If they do not evolve their irrigation, they will die from salination, and the marshes can live on relatively salty water, albeit in a different biodiversity scheme than exists today," he said. —  Water Conserve: Water Conservation RSS Newsfeed
  • Provincial autonomy is fair and good if the land revenue and taxes on minerals - including oil and gas - are collected exclusively by the provincial governments and used for development of infrastructure, irrigation, and maintenance of law and order. —  Bloggers.Pakistan
  • When the Uzbeks needed more water in the following summer for irrigation, the reservoir had less water.
  • CHILLICOTHE - Subsurface drip irrigation was able to produce up to four bales of cotton per acre with less water than conventional irrigation methods at the Texas AgriLife Research station near Chillicothe. —  Science Blog - Science news straight from the source
More examples »
 

Tags

irrigation hasn't been tagged yet.

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 120 times.

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Etymologies (1)

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. = French irrigation = Provencal irrigacio = Portuguese irrigação = Italian irrigazione, from Latin irrigatio(n-), inrigatio(n-), a watering, from irrigare, inrigare, irrigate: see irrigate.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »

If you'd like to prod us on getting a pronunciation for this word, sign in (or sign up) and let us know.

Charts
frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word about twice a week.

Recently looked up

weeklong · eocene · birthday · endoplasmic · horse-breeding

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

silence · spell it rite · britney · bunda · settii