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waterfall.

A flow of water over the edge of a cliff.

9 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈwɔːtəfɔːl/Received-Pronunciation/ˈwoːtəfoːl/Australia, British, New-Zealand, Southern, Standard/ˈwɔtɚfɔl//ˈwɑtɚfɑl/cot-caught-merger

  1. A flow of water over the edge of a cliff.

  2. A waterfall-like outpouring of liquid, smoke, etc.

    figuratively
    A waterfall of mist came from the open freezer.

  3. Short for waterfall model

    abbreviation · alt-of
    A very long project […] had taken a whole group of people through a painful waterfall development process.

  4. A chart depicting the timing and duration of network requests.

  5. The action of drinking from a vessel without touching it with the lips, considered more sanitary for a shared vessel.

    US · slang
    Hey man, can I take a waterfall from your bottle?

  6. A necktie.

    colloquial · dated

  7. A chignon (hairstyle).

    colloquial · dated

  8. A beard.

    colloquial · dated

  9. A kind of handstand with chin tucked and back arched.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English waterfal, waterfalle, from Old English wæterġefeall (“waterfall”), equivalent to water + fall. Cognate with West Frisian wetterfal (“waterfall”), Dutch waterval (“waterfall”), German Wasserfall (“waterfall”), Swedish vattenfall (“waterfall”).

verb/ˈwɔːtəfɔːl/Received-Pronunciation/ˈwoːtəfoːl/Australia, British, New-Zealand, Southern, Standard/ˈwɔtɚfɔl//ˈwɑtɚfɑl/cot-caught-merger

  1. To fall like a waterfall.

    intransitive

  2. To drink (something) from a container by pouring it from a height so as not to touch one's lips to the rim.

    transitive

  3. Synonym of recycle.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English waterfal, waterfalle, from Old English wæterġefeall (“waterfall”), equivalent to water + fall. Cognate with West Frisian wetterfal (“waterfall”), Dutch waterval (“waterfall”), German Wasserfall (“waterfall”), Swedish vattenfall (“waterfall”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.