Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Water that has fallen as rain and contains little dissolved mineral matter.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Rainfall.
  • noun Water (for a house etc) sourced from rain which has not joined a spring, stream or river, pond, lake or sea.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

rain +‎ water

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Examples

Comments

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  • Besides being a beautiful (if somewhat redundant) word, it seems that it underscores additional support for chained_bear's assertions that intelligent people need to reproduce in ever-increasing numbers. From Planetsave:

    "Notch up another one for the members of the Idiots Anonymous who have apparently been camping out in Bellingham, Washington. Apparently, rainwater doesn’t actually belong to individuals, but to the state as a whole. Therefore, all the wonderful efforts of communities to collect water are actually illegal.

    Not just frowned upon, or morally unethical, or shifty – all of which water collection is not – but actually illegal, so much so that in the future such legalities could be used in a court of law.

    It comes down once again to the simple fact that humanity is doomed to an ever continuing cycle of idiot and misanthropic events and situations that will, eventually, simply wear down those of us with half a brain, and leave planet Earth populated by half-wits and mimes (often the same thing)."

    July 24, 2008

  • Who's with me?!

    July 24, 2008

  • seems anti-pregnancy measures employed by intellectuals (who realize they don't want or shouldn't have children at the moment) tending to be birth control pills and condoms rather than wishful thinking is somehow working against us! (well, the world.)

    July 24, 2008

  • But for a vasectomy some years ago, I'd be all over it!

    July 24, 2008

  • oh yes. and those!

    i'd really like to be able to put my uterus in a jar somewhere and pop it back in when i actually need it.

    July 24, 2008

  • From the male perspective, it would be nice to have little tiny spigots that you could turn on or off as needed. Although I'm not sure where you'd put them.

    July 24, 2008

  • i'm not sure you'd want to call them spigots: "pardon; i have to turn off my spigots.."

    July 24, 2008

  • *loves this page for its spectacular misplacement of conversational topic*

    July 24, 2008

  • I'm not sure that you'd want to call them "little tiny"...

    July 24, 2008

  • It would only be the spigots that were tiny, dontcry. The size of a man's spigots would bear no relation to that of his spunk tanks.

    July 24, 2008

  • Uh, huh. If I had a nickle for every time I heard THAT one...

    July 24, 2008

  • Spunk tanks is the funniest euphemism I have heard in ages. Thanks, yarb.

    July 24, 2008

  • or, incidentally, his spank bank.

    and what do you mean, chained_bear? rainwateruterusspigot is perfectly logical.

    July 24, 2008

  • There are some days when you arrive at a Wordie thread some time after it's started and ...

    July 24, 2008

  • Wordievolution set in right out of the gate on this one, didn't it?

    July 24, 2008

  • This page never had a chance.

    July 29, 2008

  • ps - weirdnet.

    July 29, 2008

  • Well, thank heavens it's fresh water. We wouldn't want stale water falling as precipitation from clouds. *eye roll*

    July 30, 2008

  • I noticed the same thing reesetee, and thought it was quite curious.

    July 30, 2008

  • I like the idea of stale, State-owned water falling from the sky.

    July 30, 2008

  • The state can have the stale water. I'm keeping the fresh (shh..)

    July 30, 2008