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ouse river - 2 dictionary results

Ouse

  [ooz]
Use ouse river in a Sentence
–noun
1. Also called Great Ouse. a river in E England, flowing NE to the Wash. 160 mi. (260 km) long.
2. a river in NE England, in Yorkshire, flowing SE to the Humber. 57 mi. (92 km) long.
3. a river in SE England, flowing S to the English Channel. 30 mi. (48 km) long.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Ouse River   (ōōz)   
  1. also Great Ouse River A river, about 249 km (155 mi) long, rising in south-central England and meandering east and northeast to the Wash, an inlet of the North Sea.
  2. A river, about 97 km (60 mi) long, of northeast England flowing southeast to join the Trent River and form the Humber River. It is an important commercial waterway.
Word History: Ouse is a perfectly appropriate name for a river, but one whose etymological meaning is likely to raise a smile. The English name for the river derives from its Celtic name Ūsa, from *udso-, "water," which derives from the Indo-European root *wed-, "wet, water" (and the same root from which we derive water and wet). Thus the Ouse River etymologically is the "Water River" or the "Wet River." Of course, the English who borrowed the name from the Celts did not know the meaning of the word—as is rather frequently the case when foreign topographical terms are borrowed.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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