English

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Etymology

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From tail +‎ water.

Noun

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tailwater (countable and uncountable, plural tailwaters)

  1. The water located immediately downstream from a hydraulic structure, such as a dam, bridge, or culvert.
    • 2008 May 27, Peter Kaminsky, “Rules for Reservoirs Pose Threat to Trout Population”, in New York Times[1]:
      Like the more renowned Missouri and Henry’s Fork of Montana and Idaho, it is a tailwater fishery; that is, it owes its remarkable fecundity and its population of big wild trout to the cold-water outflow of reservoir impoundment.