Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A strong light cask used for transporting drinking-water, especially on sea-going ships. Compare watertank and breaker.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The only things they did not carry with them were the water-cask and a barrel of salted meat, which they left buried in the sand, being determined if they could succeed in manufacturing a canoe within any reasonable distance, they would return to fetch these articles as supplies for their proposed voyage.

    Ralph Rashleigh 2004

  • I remember the heat, the deluge of rain-squalls that kept us baling for dear life (but filled our water-cask), and I remember sixteen hours on end with a mouth dry as a cinder and a steering-oar over the stern to keep my first command head on to a breaking sea.

    Youth, by Joseph Conrad 2004

  • One of the natives, who had attempted to steal a water-cask from the watering-place, was caught in the fact, sent on board, and put in irons.

    Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, Performed by Captain James Cook 2003

  • There was no doubt that the poisoned barrel had at some time or other contained copperas; but what strange fatality had converted it into a water-cask, or what fatality, stranger still, had caused it to be brought on board the raft, was a problem that none could solve.

    The Survivors of the Chancellor 2003

  • One of the natives, who had attempted to steal a water-cask from the watering-place, was caught in the fact, sent on board, and put in irons.

    Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, Performed by Captain James Cook 2003

  • Fashioned at last into an arrowy shape, and welded by Perth to the shank, the steel soon pointed the end of the iron; and as the blacksmith was about giving the barbs their final heat, prior to tempering them, he cried to Ahab to place the water-cask near.

    Moby Dick; or the Whale 2002

  • There should be no occasion for anyone to go into the hold soon-a fresh water-cask had been brought up only the day before.

    Drums of Autumn Gabaldon, Diana 1997

  • Thian "put" a finger on the artery that was producing the flood so he could find out from her where Mur's water-cask was stored.

    Damia's Children McCaffrey, Anne 1993

  • They were brought there, according to a native tradition, by one Nathan Coleman, of Nantucket, who, in revenge for some fancied grievance, towed a rotten water-cask ashore, and left it in a neglected _taro_ patch, where the ground was moist and warm.

    Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 Various

  • To put a small lump of lime into your water-cask is useful.

    Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers Elizabeth E. Lea

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