Cataract

Quick meaning: Cataract is a noun meaning A (large) waterfall, specifically one flowing over the edge of a cliff.

Meaning

A (large) waterfall, specifically one flowing over the edge of a cliff.

More Meanings

1. (by extension) A flood of water; specifically, steep rapids in a river.
2. (figurative) An overwhelming downpour or rush; a flood.
3. (intransitive) Of a river, etc.: to fall in the form of a waterfall.
4. (transitive, figurative, rare) To cause (something) to pour or rush like a waterfall.
5. (mechanics, chiefly historical) A type of governor used in single-acting steam engines, where a flow of water through an opening regulates the stroke.
6. (obsolete, also figurative) Synonym of waterspout (“a whirlwind that forms over water”).
7. (obsolete, rare) Synonym of portcullis (“a gate in the form of a grating which is lowered into place at the gateway of a castle, a fort, etc.”); also, a window grating.

Example Sentences

The cataracts on the Nile helped to compartment Upper Egypt.

Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts, / And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.

This Elephantis being an Iſland, is inhabited beneath the lovveſt cataract or fall of vvater three miles, and aboue Syene 16: […]

The sounding cataract / Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, / The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, / Their colours and their forms, were then to me / An appetite: […]

Word Forms

• cataracts
• cataracting
• cataracted

Synonyms for cataract

Depending on context, synonyms include waterspout, portcullis, cascade, waterfall.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include cascade, waterfall, rapids, torrent, chute, clouding.

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