a. Water that flows through or over land, as opposed to sea water. b. A land-flood. c. Water free from ice along a frozen shore.
1531–2. Act 23 Hen. VIII., c. ¶, Lande waters, and other outragious springes in and upon medowes, pastures, and other lowe groundes.
1598. W. Phillips, Linschoten (1864), 192. The land-waters that by the continuall raine falleth from the Hills.
1604. E. G[rimstone], D’Acosta’s Hist. Indies, II. vi. 91. Land-waters, as rivers, fountaines, brookes, springs, floods, and lakes.
a. 1631. Donne, Serm., li. 520. Sudden riches come like a Landwater and bring much foulnesse with them.
1725. De Foe, Voy. round World (1840), 335. Which river they supposed to be in the same manner swelled with a land-water to a prodigious degree.
1807. Vancouver, Agric. Devon (1813), 297. No springs or land-waters are to be found here.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., II. xxvi. 264. We soon found ourselves in a stretch of the land-water wide enough to give us rowing-room.
