Now rare. [Cf. G. wasserstrom, MLG. waterstrôm.] A stream or current of water; a river or brook; † a flood.
c. 1000. Ags. Ps. lxxvii[i]. 44. He wæterstreamas [Vulg. flumina] wende to blode.
10[?]. in Napier, Contrib. OE. Lexicogr., 67. Ac he [Christ] wolde sylf swa ʓehalʓian ure fulluht mid his halʓan lichaman & ealle wæterstreamas mid his ingange.
c. 1200. Trin. Coll. Hom., 177. Ðe water stremes [Vulg. flumina, Ps. xciii. 3] on-heueden up here undes.
c. 1200. Ormin, 18092. For all all swa se waterstræm Aȝȝ fleteþþ forþ & erneþþ … all swa [etc.].
c. 1435. Torr. Portugal, 2032. He led it into his own lond, And told the quene how he it ffond By a water streme.
1535. Coverdale, Isa. lix. 19. He shal come as a violent waterstreame, which the wynde of the Lorde hath moued.
1596. Spenser, F. Q., VI. i. 21. Like as a water streame, whose swelling sourse Shall drive a Mill, within strong bancks is pent.
1625. T. Godwin, Moses & Aaron, II. (1641), 78. The Senate … were bound to prepare the wayes to the Cities of Refuge,… and they suffered not any hill or dale to be in the way, nor water-streames, but they made a bridge over it, that nothing might hinder him that fled thither.
1779. Thicknesse, Journ. France (1789), I. 351. The roaring of the water-streams was so great, that I very often thought we were upon the margin of some river.
1862. Smiles, Engineers, III. ii. 20. Erecting Lilliputian mills in the little water-streams.
