water column

noun

plural water columns

1

: a vertical expanse of water stretching between the surface and the floor of a body of water

Shallow feeders, sea lions work the top 600 feet of the water column for hake, rock-fish, herring, sardines … and squid, but opportunistically capturing anything that happens by.

—Downs Matthews

Only a few animals of the water column above would have died and settled into the sediments below during the short time when the mudslide was coalescing into a layer of sediment in the stagnant basin.

—Stephen Jay Gould

2

: a vertical pipe with valves and spout for delivering water to a locomotive tender

Examples of water column in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Smooth hammerheads and blacktip sharks spent comparatively more time near the surface, whereas white sharks, spinner sharks, and dusky sharks were active throughout much of the water column. —Melissa Cristina Márquez, Forbes.com, 1 Sep. 2025

Kai Naito/Kyodo News via AP Tsunami waves involve movement of the entire water column from surface to sea floor. —Barney Henderson robert Birsel john Feng, MSNBC Newsweek, 30 July 2025

As such, the belemnite body parts were thought to be floating in the lagoon's water column for some time before a Tharsis individual made its deadly choice. —New Atlas, 13 July 2025

Instead, the sharks move constantly through the water column to hunt, the department said. —Irene Wright july 8, Miami Herald, 8 July 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1845, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for water column

• collum
• sholom
• slalom
• solemn