WATER, n. Wauter. [G., Gr.]
1. A fluid, the most abundant and most necessary for living beings of any in nature, except air. Water when pure, is colorless, destitute of taste and smell, ponderous, transparent, and in a very small degree compressible. It is reposited in the earth in inexhaustible quantities, where it is preserved fresh and cool, and from which it issues in springs, which form streams and rivers. But the great reservoirs of water on the globe are the ocean, seas and lakes, which cover more than three fifths of its surface, and from which it is raised by evaporation, and uniting with the air in the state of vapor, is wafted over the earth, ready to be precipitated in the form of rain, snow or hail.
Water by the abstraction or loss of heat becomes solid, or in other words, is converted into ice or snow; and by heat it is converted into steam, an elastic vapor, one of the most powerful agents in nature. Modern chemical experiments prove that water is a compound substance, consisting of a combination of oxygen and hydrogen gases, or rather the bases or ponderable matter of those gases; or about two volumes or measures of hydrogen gas and one of oxygen gas. The proportion of the ingredients in weight, is nearly 85 parts of oxygen to 15 of hydrogen.
2. The ocean; a sea; a lake; a river; any great collection of water; as in the phrases, to go by water, to travel by water.
3. Urine; the animal liquor secreted by the kidneys and discharged from the bladder. X-)
4. The color or luster of a diamond or pearl, sometimes perhaps of other precious stones; as a diamond of the first water, that is, perfectly pure and transparent. Hence the figurative phrase, a man or a genius of the first water, that is, of the first excellence.
5. Water is a name given to several liquid substances or humors in animal bodies; as the water of the pericardium, of dropsy, &c.
Mineral waters, are those waters which are so impregnated with foreign ingredients, such as gaseous, sulphurous and saline substances, as to give them medicinal, or at least sensible properties. Most natural waters contain more or less of these foreign substances, but the proportion is generally too minute to affect the senses.
To hold water, to be sound or tight. [Obsolete or vulgar.
SCRIPTURES:
This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not bywater only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.
But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well ofwater springing up into everlasting life.
Behold, I stand by the well of water; and it shall come to pass, that when the virgin cometh forth to draw water, and I say to her, Give me, I pray thee, a little water of thy pitcher to drink;
For this they willingly are ignorant of, that of old the heavens, and the earth standing in the water and out of the water, were created by the word of God;
I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees:
For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
And thus they were driven forth; and no monster of the sea could break them, neither whale that could mar them; and they did have light continually, whether it was above the water or under the water.
Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters: and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flocks.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment