Library / English Dictionary

LAKE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A body of (usually fresh) water surrounded by land

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Hypernyms ("lake" is a kind of...):

body of water; water (the part of the earth's surface covered with water (such as a river or lake or ocean))

Meronyms (parts of "lake"):

inlet; recess (an arm off of a larger body of water (often between rocky headlands))

floor (the bottom surface of any lake or other body of water)

Domain member category:

shore (the land along the edge of a body of water)

body of water; water (the part of the earth's surface covered with water (such as a river or lake or ocean))

lentic (of or relating to or living in still waters (as lakes or ponds))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "lake"):

lagoon; laguna; lagune (a body of water cut off from a larger body by a reef of sand or coral)

loch (Scottish word for a lake)

lough (Irish word for a lake)

oxbow lake (a crescent-shaped lake (often temporary) that is formed when a meander of a river is cut off from the main channel)

pond; pool (a small lake)

tarn (a mountain lake (especially one formed by glaciers))

bayou (a swampy arm or slow-moving outlet of a lake (term used mainly in Mississippi and Louisiana))

artificial lake; man-made lake; reservoir (lake used to store water for community use)

Instance hyponyms:

Lake Michigan; Michigan (the 3rd largest of the Great Lakes; the largest freshwater lake entirely within the United States borders)

Lake Nasser; Nasser (lake in Egypt formed by dams built on the Nile River at Aswan)

Ladoga; Lake Ladoga (a lake in northwestern Russia to the north of St. Petersburg; the largest lake in Europe; drains through the Neva River into the Gulf of Finland)

Lake Malawi; Lake Nyasa (a long lake in southeastern Africa between Tanzania, Mozambique, and Malawi)

Ilmen; Lake Ilmen (a lake in northwestern Russia; drains through the Volkhov River into Lake Ladoga)

Lake Onega; Onega (lake in northwestern Russia near the border with Finland; second largest lake in Europe)

Lake Ontario; Ontario (the smallest of the Great Lakes)

Lake Saint Clair; Lake St. Clair (a lake between Ontario and Michigan; connected with Lake Huron and Lake Erie)

Lake Superior; Superior (the largest freshwater lake in the world; the deepest of the Great Lakes)

Lake Tana; Lake Tsana (a lake in northern Ethiopia; the largest lake in Ethiopia and the source of the Blue Nile)

Lake Tanganyika; Tanganyika (the longest lake in the world in central Africa between Tanzania and Congo in the Great Rift Valley)

Daryacheh-ye Orumiyeh; Lake Urmia; Urmia (a shallow saline lake in northwestern Iran between Tabriz and the western border of Turkey)

Lake Vanern; Vanern (a lake in southwestern Sweden; the largest lake in Sweden)

Lake Victoria; Victoria Nyanza (the largest lake in Africa and the 2nd largest fresh water lake in the world; a headwaters reservoir for the Nile River)

Lake Okeechobee; Okeechobee (a lake in southeast Florida to the north of the Everglades)

Poyang (a lake in central China that is connected to the Chang Jiang by a canal)

Salton Sea (a saltwater lake in southeastern California)

Lake Seneca; Seneca Lake (a glacial lake in central New York; the largest of the Finger Lakes)

Lake Winnipeg; Winnipeg (a lake in southern Canada in Manitoba)

Balaton; Lake Balaton; Plattensee (a large shallow lake in western Hungary)

Canandaigua Lake; Lake Canandaigua (a glacial lake in central New York; one of the Finger Lakes)

Caspian; Caspian Sea (a large saltwater lake between Iran and Russia fed by the Volga River; the largest inland body of water in the world)

Cayuga Lake; Lake Cayuga (a glacial lake in central New York; the longest of the Finger Lakes)

Baikal; Baykal; Lake Baikal; Lake Baykal (the largest freshwater lake in Asia or Europe and the deepest lake in the world)

Lake Chelan (a narrow very deep lake in central Washington in the Cascade Range)

Coeur d'Alene Lake (a lake in northern Idaho)

Lake Tahoe (a lake on the border between Nevada and California to the west of Carson City; a popular resort area)

Bodensee; Constance; Lake Constance (a lake in southeastern Germany on the northern side of the Swiss Alps; forms part of the Rhine River)

Dead Sea (a saltwater lake on the border between Israel and Jordan; its surface in 1292 feet below sea level)

Eyre; Lake Eyre (a shallow salt lake in south central Australia about 35 feet below sea level; the largest lake in the country and the lowest point on the continent)

Great Salt Lake (a shallow body of salt water in northwestern Utah)

Great Slave Lake (a lake in the Northwest Territories in northwestern Canada; drained by the Mackenzie River)

IJsselmeer (a shallow lake in northwestern Netherlands created in 1932 by building a dam across the entrance to the Zuider Zee)

Keuka Lake; Lake Keuka (a glacial lake in central New York; one of the Finger Lakes)

Kivu; Lake Kivu (a lake in the mountains of central Africa between Congo and Rwanda)

Lake Albert; Lake Albert Nyanza; Mobuto Lake (a shallow lake on the border between Uganda and Congo in the Great Rift Valley)

Aral Sea; Lake Aral (a lake to the east of the Caspian Sea lying between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan)

Chad; Lake Chad (a lake in north central Africa; fed by the Shari river)

Champlain; Lake Champlain (a lake in northeastern New York, northwestern Vermont and southern Quebec; site of many battles in the French and Indian War and in the American Revolution and in the War of 1812)

Lake Edward (a lake in the Great Rift Valley between Congo and Uganda)

Erie; Lake Erie (the 4th largest of the Great Lakes; it is linked to the Hudson River by the New York State Barge Canal)

Lake Geneva; Lake Leman (a lake between southwestern Switzerland and France that is crossed from east to west by the Rhone)

Huron; Lake Huron (the 2nd largest of the Great Lakes)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Any of numerous bright translucent organic pigments

Classified under:

Nouns denoting substances

Hypernyms ("lake" is a kind of...):

pigment (dry coloring material (especially a powder to be mixed with a liquid to produce paint, etc.))

Sense 3

Meaning:

A purplish red pigment prepared from lac or cochineal

Classified under:

Nouns denoting substances

Hypernyms ("lake" is a kind of...):

pigment (dry coloring material (especially a powder to be mixed with a liquid to produce paint, etc.))

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Present simple (first person singular and plural, second person singular and plural, third person plural) of the verb lake

Credits

 Context examples: 

At their backs rose a perpendicular wall of rock, and Perrault and François were compelled to make their fire and spread their sleeping robes on the ice of the lake itself.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

A usually aggressive morphologic variant of acinar adenocarcinoma of the prostate gland characterized by the presence of lakes of extracellular mucin.

(Acinar Prostate Mucinous Adenocarcinoma, NCI Thesaurus)

Surface water includes rivers, lakes and reservoirs.

(Drinking Water, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

A splendid park with fine old timber surrounds the house, and the lake, to which my client had referred, lay close to the avenue, about two hundred yards from the building.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The new research, published in the journal PNAS, suggests that climate change may cause the levels of greenhouse gases emitted by freshwater northern lakes to increase by between 1.5 and 2.7 times.

(Climate change could double greenhouse gas emissions from freshwater ecosystems, University of Cambridge)

C. acetobutylicum is found commonly in soil, lake sediment, well water, and bovine, canine, and human feces.

(Clostridium acetobutylicum, NCI Thesaurus)

That might be a clue to how the Red Planet lost its lakes and rivers over billions of years, becoming the freezing desert it is today.

(Global Storms on Mars Launch Dust Towers Into the Sky, NASA)

Excess phosphorus from fertilized cropland frequently finds its way into nearby rivers and lakes.

(Plant gene discovery could help reduce fertilizer pollution in waterways, National Science Foundation)

In periods of drought, more water evaporates from lakes such as Chichancanab, and because the lighter isotopes of water evaporate faster, the water becomes heavier.

(Scientists measure severity of drought during the Maya collapse, University of Cambridge)

Dragon's Breath Cave, the largest non-subglacial underground lake on Earth, is buried there.

(Sleeping sands of the Kalahari awaken after more than 10,000 years, NSF)