drainage basin

drainage basin

noun
the area drained by a river and all its tributaries. Also called catchment area, drainage area. Compare watershed (def. 2).

Origin:
1880–85, Americanism
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Drainage basin is always a great word to know.
So is ort. Does it mean:
a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal.
a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison.
Collins
World English Dictionary
drainage basin or drainage area
 
n
another name for catchment area
 
drainage area or drainage area
 
n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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American Heritage
Science Dictionary
drainage basin   (drā'nĭj)  Pronunciation Key 
An area drained by a river system. A drainage basin includes all areas that gather precipitation water and direct it to a particular stream, stream system, lake, or other body of standing water.
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
Copyright © 2002. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.
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Encyclopedia Britannica
Encyclopedia

drainage basin

area from which all precipitation flows to a single stream or set of streams. For example, the total area drained by the Mississippi River constitutes its drainage basin, whereas that part of the Mississippi River drained by the Ohio River is the Ohio's drainage basin. The boundary between drainage basins is a drainage divide: all the precipitation on opposite sides of a drainage divide will flow into different drainage basins.

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
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