Watershed

How to spell watershed

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce watershed

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does watershed mean?

1. nounA critical point that marks a division or a decisive change after which things are different.
2. nounThe ridge or area of land that separates waters flowing to different river systems, or the whole region drained by a river.
3. nounThe fixed evening time before which broadcasters must not show material unsuitable for children.

Watershed in a sentence

• The merger proved to be a watershed in the company's history.

• The survey mapped every stream within the river watershed.

• The broadcaster scheduled the explicit drama after the nine o'clock watershed.

• The election marked a watershed for housing policy in the region.

• Pollution upstream affects the entire watershed below it.

• Regulators warned the channel for airing the scene before the watershed.

Where does watershed come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Watershed entered English in the early 1800s as a deliberate translation, or calque, of the German Wasserscheide, which combines Wasser meaning 'water' with Scheide meaning 'divide' or 'parting'. The 'shed' part has nothing to do with a garden shed; it comes from the same old Germanic root that gives us 'shed' in the sense of 'to part' or 'to separate', and is a cousin of the verb in 'to shed tears' and of the word 'sheath'. In its original geographical sense it named the ridge line that parts rainfall, sending water down one slope into one river system and down the other slope into another. In British usage it kept this 'dividing line' meaning, while American and Canadian usage drifted toward naming the whole drainage area itself. From the idea of a decisive parting of the ways grew the modern figurative sense of a turning point after which things flow in a new direction, and the spelling stays transparent precisely because it is just two familiar words joined together.

How the word is built

• water (the noun)
• shed (from an old sense of 'divide' or 'ridge of high ground separating waters')