Human - an organic life form composed of 50%-70% water on
average.
Ocean - a major body of saline water that, in totality, covers
about 71% of the Earth's surface.
Basin - a region of land where water from rain or snowmelt drains
downhill into another body of water, such as a river, lake, or
dam.
Bay - an area of water bordered by land on three sides.
Bayou - a small, slow-moving stream or creek.
Beck - a small stream.
Boil - a body of water formed by a spring.
Brook - a small stream.
Burn - a small stream.
Canal - a man-made waterway, usually connected to (and sometimes
connecting) existing lakes, rivers, or oceans.
Channel - the physical confine of a river, slough or ocean strait
consisting of a bed and banks. See also stream bed and
strait.
Cove - a coastal landform. Earth scientists generally use the term
to describe a circular or round inlet with a narrow entrance,
though colloquially the term is sometimes used to describe any
sheltered bay.
Creek - a small stream.
Creek (tidal) - an inlet of the sea, narrower than a cove.
Dam - a barrier across flowing water that obstructs, directs or
slows down the flow, often creating a reservoir, lake or
impoundment. The word "dam" can also refer to the reservoir rather
than the structure.
Draw - a usually dry creek bed or gulch that temporarily fills
with water after a heavy rain, or seasonally.
Estuary - a semi-enclosed coastal body of water with one or more
rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to
the open sea
Firth - the Scots word used to denote various coastal waters in
Scotland. It is usually a large sea bay, estuary, inlet, or
strait.
Gulf - a part of a lake or ocean that extends so that it is
surrounded by land on three sides, similar to, but larger than a
bay.
Harbor - a man-made or naturally occurring body of water where
ships are stored or may shelter from the ocean's weather and
currents.
Inlet - a body of water, usually seawater, which has
characteristics of one or more of the following: bay, cove,
estuary, firth fjord, geo, sea loch, or sound.
Lagoon - a body of comparatively shallow salt or brackish water
separated from the deeper sea by a shallow or exposed sandbank,
coral reef, or similar feature.
Lake - a body of water or other liquid, but usually freshwater, of
considerable size contained on a body of land.
Marsh - a wetland featuring grasses, rushes, reeds, typhas,
sedges, and other herbaceous plants (possibly with low-growing
woody plants) in a context of shallow water. See also Salt
marsh.
Millpond - a reservoir built to provide flowing water to a
watermill
Oxbow Lake - a U-shaped lake formed when a wide meander from the
mainstem of a river is cut off to create a lake.
Phytotelma - a small, discrete body of water held by some
plants.
Pool - a small body of water such as a swimming pool, reflecting
pool, pond, or puddle.
Pond - a body of water smaller than a lake, especially those of
man-made origin.
Puddle - a small accumulation of water on a surface, usually the
ground.
Rapid - a fast moving part of a river
Reservoir - an artificial lake, used to store water for various
uses.
River - a natural waterway usually formed by water derived from
either precipitation or glacial meltwater, and flows from higher
ground to lower ground.
Run - a small stream or part thereof, especially a smoothly
flowing part of a stream.
Salt marsh - a type of marsh that is a transitional zone between
land and an area, such as a slough, bay, or estuary, with salty or
brackish water.
Sea - a large expanse of saline water connected with an ocean, or
a large, usually saline, lake that lacks a natural outlet such as
the Caspian Sea and the Dead Sea. In common usage, often synonymous
to ocean.
Slough (wetland) - the word slough has several meanings related to
wetland or aquatic features.
Source (river or stream) - the original point from which the river
or stream flows. A river's source is sometimes a spring.
Spring - a point where groundwater flows out of the ground, and is
thus where the aquifer surface meets the ground surface.
Strait - a narrow channel of water that connects two larger bodies
of water, and thus lies between two land masses.
Stream - a body of water with a detectable current, confined
within a bed and banks.
Swamp - a wetland that features permanent inundation of large
areas of land by shallow bodies of water, generally with a
substantial number of hummocks, or dry-land protrusions.
Tide pool - a rocky pool adjacent to an ocean and filled with
seawater.
Vernal pool - a shallow, natural depression in level ground, with
no permanent above-ground outlet, that holds water
seasonally.
Wash - a usually dry creek bed or gulch that temporarily fills
with water after a heavy rain, or seasonally.
Wetland - an environment at the interface between truly
terrestrial ecosystems and truly aquatic systems making them
different from each yet highly dependent on both