Citations:water

Noun: a clear liquid

 * 1516, Thomas More,  Utopia:
 * This is done to the intente that the water shoulde not be stopped nor turned away, or poysoned, if their enemies should chance to come upon them.
 * 1595, William Shakespeare, Richard II:
 * Not all the water in the rough rude sea / Can wash the balm off from an anointed king; / The breath of worldly men cannot depose / The deputy elected by the Lord.
 * 1611, William Shakespeare,  The Tempest:
 * By Providence divine. / Some food we had and some fresh water that / A noble Neapolitan, Gonzalo, / Out of his charity,—who being then appointed / Master of this design,—did give us
 * 1661, Robert Boyle,  The Sceptical Chymist:
 * For if that be carefully rectify’d, it may be reduc’d into a very clear Liquor; and yet if You cast a quantity of fair 'water upon it, there will quickly precipitate a Ponderous and Vomitive Calx, which made before a considerable part of the Liquor […]
 * 1720, Daniel Defoe,  The Life:
 * In about an hour, and not sooner, the water began to come dropping through the bottom of the bag, and, to our great surprise, was perfectly fresh and sweet; and this continued for several hours; but in the end the water began to be a little brackish.
 * 1782, J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur,  Letters from an American Farmer:
 * The living spectre, though deprived of his eyes, could still distinctly hear, and in his uncouth dialect begged me to give him some water to allay his thirst.
 * 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne,  The Scarlet Letter:
 * At first, as already told, she had flirted fancifully with her own image in a pool of water, beckoning the phantom forth, and- as it declined to venture- seeking a passage for herself into its sphere of impalpable earth and unattainable sky.
 * 1890, Ambrose Bierce,  An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge:
 * A rising sheet of water curved over him, fell down upon him, blinded him, strangled him!

Noun (in plural): any body of water, such as a river or a lake

 * 1611, King James Version, Psalms 23:2
 * He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.


 * 2008, Clive Ralph Symmons, Historic waters in the law of the sea: a modern re-appraisal
 * This work reassesses the doctrine, and status, of historic waters in the law of the sea, particularly in the light of recent developments, such as in Alaska v. US (2005), which case forms a continuous theme throughout the book.

Noun (countable): a body of water, standing or flowing; a lake, river, or other collection of water

 * 1842, Thomas Fuller, The church history of Britain, from the birth of Jesus Christ until the year MDCXLVIII, volume 3, edited by James Nichols
 * Remembering he had passed over a small water a poor scholar when first coming to the university, he kneeled.
 * 1844, Robert Chambers, William Chambers, The gazetteer of Scotland, page 806
 * It is a placid water, with a very slight fall, and near its mouth forms the harbour of Inverness,
 * 1908, E. A. Letts, W. E. Adeney, Report by E.A. Letts and W.E. Adeney: on the pollution of estuaries and tidal waters, page 68
 * It is well to make this distinction between the possible causes of the reduction of the aeration of a flowing water, when polluting matters are discharged into them, because they may act at very different rates.

Noun: water

 * 1380, Geoffrey Chaucer,  The House of Fame:
 * Be experience; for if that thou / Throwe on water now a stoon, / Wel wost thou, hit wol make anoon / A litel roundel as a cercle, / Paraventer brood as a covercle;
 * 1384, John Wycliffe, Bible (Wycliffe): Proverbs, xxx, 15-16:
 * It suffisith; / helle, and the mouth of the wombe, and the erthe which is neuere fillid with water; but fier seith neuere, It suffisith.
 * 1390, John Gower, Confessio Amantis:
 * Bot whan the blake wynter nyht / Withoute Mone or Sterre lyht / Bederked hath the water Stronde, / Al prively thei gon to londe / Ful armed out of the navie.
 * 1440, Robert Thornton, Sir Perceval of Galles:
 * His righte name was Percyvell, / He was fosterde in the felle, / He dranke water of the welle, / And yitt was he wyghte.