Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun See oak.
  • noun In botany, an oak, Quercus aquatica, of the southern United States, most common and best developed along streams in the eastern Gulf States. Its wood is heavy, hard, and coarse-grained, and does not appear to be used except for fuel. Also duck-, possum-, or punk-oak.
  • noun Same as pin-oak.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • There was no sound abroad except the hooting of an old owl in the top of a water-oak, and the everlasting voice of the sea, that was not uplifted at that soft hour.

    The Awakening 2000

  • But the night was safely dark: a soft gray scud from the Gulf was flying rapidly in, obscuring even the dim starlight, and no one saw them as they passed through the turngate in the fence and sat down close to the water's edge under the overhanging trunk of a huge water-oak.

    Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 of Popular Literature and Science Various

  • Bill was eventually discovered seated on a cushion-covered nail keg beneath a large water-oak at the rear of the building.

    Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves Georgia Narratives, Part 2 Work Projects Administration

  • As we walk up from the station through, first a wood of water-oak, sweet-gum and hickory, then an open glade with scattering persimmon trees upon it, and lastly, a fine park of postoaks draped with Spanish moss, we approach the old southern "Mansion," which was the only building of any account upon the ground when the Association purchased it in 1869, and which is still the handsomest one.

    The American Missionary — Volume 42, No. 01, January, 1888 Various

  • There was no sound abroad except the hooting of an old owl in the top of a water-oak, and the everlasting voice of the sea, that was not uplifted at that soft hour.

    The Awakening 1899

  • The sky was so wonderful and the river so winding and lovely and the air so delicious that yesterdays did not seem important and only to-day counted; and it was when we were sitting under a beautiful big water-oak that Whythe began to be terribly sentimental and say things that would have been more suitable for moonlight and shadows and things of that sort.

    Kitty Canary Kate Langley Bosher 1898

  • He descended the sloping bank, and, sitting on a stone in the shade of a water-oak, took off his coarse brogans, unwound the rags that served him in lieu of stockings, and laved in the cool water the feet that were chafed with many a weary mile of travel.

    The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and Selected Essays 1895

  • As they did so, the child uttered a cry of joy, sprang to the water-oak, and caught up a frightened-looking little black and white kitten that was cautiously descending the big trunk backward.

    Raftmates A Story of the Great River Kirk Munroe 1890

  • The tree was a huge moss-hung water-oak, evidently too large to be chopped down, as all the 'coon trees of Solon's stories had been.

    Raftmates A Story of the Great River Kirk Munroe 1890

  • Before us and close on our right were the dense woods of magnolia, water-oak, tupelo and a hundred other affluent things that towered and spread or clambered and hung.

    The Cavalier George Washington Cable 1884

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