dead water, dead-water
[dead a. 22.]
1. Water without any current; still water.
| 1601 Holland Pliny I. 240 A standing poole or dead water. 1691 T. H[ale] Acc. New Invent. 122 Its broad side lying to the Wind in dead water. 1874 Burnand My Time xxii. 197 We pulled in..and made for a quiet nook in dead-water. |
| attrib. 1792 J. Phillips Hist. Inland Navig. Add. (1795) 29 The advantages of a dead-water navigation. |
2. Naut. The eddy water just behind the stern of a ship under way.
| 1627 Capt. Smith Seaman's Gram. ix. 42 Dead water is the Eddie water followes the sterne of the ship, not passing away so quickly as that slides by her sides. c 1850 Rudim. Navig. (Weale) 114 Vessels with a round buttock have but little or no dead-water. |
3. The stillest state of the tide, when the rise and fall are at a minimum; the neap tide. (
Cf. dead a. 27.)
| 1561 Eden Arte Nauig. ii. xviii. 50 Whiche the Mariners call nepe tyde..dead waters, or lowe fluddes. |
4. (See
quot.)
| 1904 Goodchild & Tweney Technol. & Sci. Dict. 151/2 Dead water, water which does not come into contact with the effective heating surface of a boiler. |