irrigation ditch
3
3.3
- noun
- /ˌɪrɪˈɡeɪʃən dɪtʃ/
:
canal de riego
- We catch the frogs that populate the irrigation ditch by the garden wall.
- digging an irrigation ditch
Well, there's a, there's a irrigation ditch, like a great big irrigation ditch between US and the target house.
- Well, there's a, there's a irrigation ditch, like a great big irrigation ditch between US and the target house.
Examples
-
The fields we cut through were dark and empty beneath the snow, with an irrigation ditch running close along the raised tracks.
Fiction book (1994) -
Farmers rely on an irrigation ditch to supply water to their crops during the dry season.
-
The last thing I saw was the trees along the high irrigation ditch.
Fiction book (1991) -
I was digging irrigation ditches for a while.
-
Staring out the windows, I can see fog rising off the banks of irrigation ditches.
Fiction book (1996) -
I'm getting calls about an overflowing irrigation ditch on 600 North.
-
Typically, water flows to farms in concrete-lined irrigation ditches or is pumped from the ground.
Academic text (2000) -
Perhaps he recalls moments from their childhood: throwing rocks over the barn, swimming in the irrigation ditch, the taste of tomatoes fresh from the vine.
Academic text (2008) -
Men and women fleeing Germany spent the nights in cold, wet irrigation ditches on the borders of France, Holland, and what remained of Czechoslovakia.
Fiction book (1991) -
In the southwestern United States, where water is scarce, tilapia are grown in concrete-lined irrigation ditches, and the effluent is used to irrigate field crops.
Academic text (2000)
Synonyms
57
3.8
A deep narrow waterway that ships can use
1
9.9
A ditch run by the local community that carries water to fields
An open channel beside a road that carries rainwater
How Big
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and transparently derived from combining 'irrigation' (artificial delivery of water) and 'ditch' (a channel or excavation); a learner who knows both words can infer it refers to a channel used to supply water to land. This straightforward noun–noun composition is common cross-linguistically and follows regular English compounding patterns, so it should be comprehensible to a B1 learner.
Etymology
Irrigation ditch comes from farming: it describes a long, narrow ditch dug to carry water for irrigation from a river to dry fields. That's why the phrase means a small man-made channel 'to supply water' to land for crops.