Waterfall

How to spell waterfall

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce waterfall

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does waterfall mean?

1. nounA place where a river or stream flows over a steep drop, sending water plunging down.

Waterfall in a sentence

• The hikers paused to photograph the thundering waterfall at the head of the valley.

• A narrow trail led down to the base of the waterfall, where mist soaked their jackets.

Where does waterfall come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English compound, joining two very old Anglo-Saxon words: 'water', from Old English 'wæter', and 'fall', from Old English 'feallan' meaning 'to drop or descend'. Both halves trace back to Germanic roots shared across the early languages of northern Europe, where 'water' had relatives in nearly every neighbouring tongue. The combined form 'waterfall' is recorded from the Old English period as 'wætergefeall', describing exactly what it still names today: water descending sharply over a ledge or cliff. Because both parts are plain everyday words spelled just as they sound, the compound has stayed transparent and stable for well over a thousand years. The only thing to watch is that it is written as one solid word, not two.

How the word is built

• water (flowing liquid)
• fall (a dropping or descent)