Names of Bodies of Water

Arroyo: a channel or stream that only runs after rain and is dry the rest of the time.    

Basin: a place where rainfall collects and runs into a common outlet like a river.

Bay: a body of water that is surrounded on land by three sides, and usually found near the ocean.

Bayou: a swampy portion of a river or lake with water that moves slowly; a common term for creeks and lakes in the southern United States.

Bight: a wide bay that barely cuts inland.

Bog: a wetland with freshwater that has saturated peat moss and other decaying plant matter.

Bourn: a small stream, brook, or seasonal stream; called a burn in Scotland.

Brook: a small creek or stream.

Canal: a manmade waterway that connects to oceans, lakes, and rivers.

Channel: the area in which a river, stream, or strait flows, complete with the banks and bed.

Cove:  a sheltered bay with a small entrance.

Creek: a stream of water that is smaller than a river and usually a tributary to a river.

Delta: a flat, low-lying area where a river ends, often splitting into several branches before it reaches another river, the ocean, or another body of water.

Distributary Channel: a stream that flows away from the main channel of a river.

Draw: a stream or creek that only fills after heavy rain but remains dry the rest of the time; an arroyo or wadi.

Estuary: a partially closed-off coastal body of water where rivers meet the ocean.

Fjord: a narrow, deep inlet of the sea that is bordered by steep slopes or cliffs.

Glacier: a large body of dense ice that slowly moves in a given area.

Gulf: a body of water that is bordered on three sides by land and much larger than a bay.

Harbor: a sheltered waterbody that is often used to dock ships and boats due to a low or absent current.

Impoundment: a body of water that is purposefully contained in an artificial enclosure; a reservoir that is created by a dam.

Inlet: a recess in a shoreline at the sea, river, or lakes; a small, narrow arm of a sea.

Kettle Lake: a small, shallow body of water formed when retreating glaciers lose chunks of ice, and the ice became trapped in sediment; such a waterbody is formed by floodwaters draining.

Lagoon: a shallow body of water, typically seawater, that is separated from the rest of the sea by sand, rocks, and vegetation.

Lake: a freshwater body of water that is bound by land, larger than a pond, and usually freshwater; may be artificial such as a reservoir, or naturally occurring.

Lick: a small, temporarily flowing stream.

Loch: a Scottish term that most often refers to lakes but may also refer to inlets, bays, and estuaries.

Mangrove Swamp: a coastal waterbody with high salinity and mangrove trees.

Marsh: a perpetually waterlogged area of low-lying land that floods as a result of rain or tidal shifts, and usually features large herbaceous plants, reeds, rushes, and grasses.

Mere: a lake that is exceptionally broad compared to its depth.

Moat: a manmade trench, sometimes filled with water, used to protect another area.

Ocean: the significant waterbody that covers the majority of the planet’s surface, often broken down into several smaller bodies for the sake of identification.

Oxbow Lake: a lake with a U-shape that forms from a river after the water follows a new path from its original meander; called a billabong in Australia.

Pool: any number of small bodies of water, either artificial or natural

Pond: water that is smaller than a lake but has similar properties to one and can be natural or artificial.

Puddle: a small buildup of water on the ground’s surface.

Reservoir: an area that is used to store water, especially in reference to dammed rivers and the artificial lakes they create.

Rill: a small, shallow channel of water that may be natural or artificial.

River: a naturally occurring moving body of water with boundaries that drains into another water, typically other rivers or oceans.

Sea: a large area of an ocean that is partially enclosed or nearly completely surrounded by land or a defined body of water such as the Sargasso Sea; the ocean.

Seep: an exceptionally small body of water that is formed by a spring.

Source: a place from which a body of water receives its water; a headwaters.

Shoal: an accumulation of sediment covering a submerged ridge; a place where the water in a sea or river is particularly shallow.

Sound: an ocean inlet that is wider than fjord, and bigger than a bay.

Spring: a place where groundwater naturally flows up; hot springs are warmed by geothermal energy.

Strait: a narrow channel that connects two large bodies of water.

Stream: a small body of water that possesses a current, banks, and a bed but remains smaller than a river.

Swamp: a wetland that is perpetually covered with water and possessing woody vegetation with some land rising above the water.

Tide Pool: a rocky pool of seawater that forms next to the ocean.

Tributary: a body of water, usually freshwater, that feeds into a larger body of water without flowing into the ocean.

Wash: also called an arroyo in parts of the United States.