slack-water
Also slack water, slackwater.
[f. slack a.]
1. The time at high or low water when the tide is not flowing visibly in either direction.
Occurs earlier as slake water: see slake a. 3.
| 1769 Falconer Dict. Marine (1780), Slack-water, the interval between the flux and reflux of the tide;..during which..the water apparently remains in a state of rest. 1832 Marryat N. Forster xviii, The ebb-tide was..over; a short pause of ‘slack water’ ensued. 1875 Bedford Sailor's Pocket Bk. v. (ed. 2) 170 This long period of nearly slack water is very valuable to the traffic of the port. |
| fig. 1883 19th Cent. May 896 We are in a period of ‘slack water’ so far as politics are concerned. |
2. A stretch of comparatively still water in the sea, due to the absence of currents.
| 1853 Kane Grinnell Exp. x. (1856) 76 A portion of the interval between the eastern and western coasts is the seat of a partial slackwater, or even rotating eddy. 1862 Ansted Channel Isl. i. iv. 65 The north of Herm is the point of land where there would be slack water. |
3. A part of a river lying outside of the current, or one in which the flow is lessened by a lock or dam. Also
fig.| 1837 J. M. Peck Gazetteer Illinois (ed. 2) iii. 264 Fox river is susceptible of improvement by slack water at small expense. 1867–77 Chambers Astron. 258 There is no ‘slack-water’, as is ordinarily the case in other rivers. 1886 Pall Mall G. 14 July 1 [To] swim..into the current, get swept down by it a quarter of a mile, and paddle slowly back again in the slackwater. 1901 Scotsman 25 Mar. 7/3 The House again fell into the slack water of small talk. |
4. attrib., as
slack-water basin,
slack-water deposit,
slack-water period,
slack-water stream;
slack-water navigation, navigation carried on by the use of locks or dams on a river.
| 1836 J. Hall Statistics of West 38 At low stages the [Ohio] river becomes resolved into a succession of ripples, with extensive slack water basins between them. 1842 Civil Eng. & Arch. Jrnl. V. 75/2 It was concluded that the time had arrived for changing the navigation of the Lehigh into a slackwater navigation. 1860 Holmes Elsie V. ii, This slack-water period of a race, which comes before the rapid ebb of its prosperity. 1877 Burroughs Taxation 28 It is difficult to see how the advantages of slackwater navigation..can be brought within the range of local objects. 1889 F. G. Wright Ice Age North Amer. 358 The Ohio above Cincinnati was a slack-water stream. 1894 Pop. Sci. Monthly June 196 The ice-dam accounts most naturally for the slack-water deposits. |