1. One who transports goods, etc., by water, not by land or railway. In quot. 1764, a barge-master.
1764. [J. Burton], Pres. St. Navig. Thames, 14. These Water-carriers … look upon themselves as Masters and Lords of the River;… refusing Carriage of Goods, but on their own Terms, [etc.].
1881. Chicago Times, 17 June. The railroads, in their anxiety to secure employment for their idle rolling-stock, will bid against the water-carriers.
1892. Daily News, 4 Aug., 3/4. Their [sc. the railway company’s] carrying traffic in wool … had suffered … through the competition of a combination of water carriers.
2. A man (or animal) that carries water; esp. in oriental countries, the native who supplies an establishment or a number of troops with water.
1787. trans. Volney’s Trav. Syria & Egypt (1788), I. 256, note. At Cairo, it is observed, that the water-carriers, continually wet with the fresh water they carry in skins upon their backs, are never subject to the plague.
1824. Morier, Hajji Baba, ix. The muleteer … recommended me strongly to become a saka, or water-carrier.
1855. Poultry Chron., III. 374. These bees are water-carriers.
1882. F. M. Crawford, Mr. Isaacs, xi. 231. I told him to send a bhisti, a water-carrier, with his leathern bucket.
1899. Atlantic Monthly, LXXXIII. 760/1. Some of the burros were water carriers, with great earthen jars swung in pairs against their panting sides.
3. Something that carries water.
a. A tank or other vessel for carrying water. (See also quot. 1875.)
1854. Hull Improv. Act, 36. A sufficient number of … water-carriers, trucks, water-carts.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., Water-carrier, a form of water-elevator in which the bucket lifted from the well or cistern is transported on wires to the house at a considerable distance.
b. dial. An open channel for water, esp. in an irrigated meadow.
1879. Jefferies, Wild Life in S. Co., 373. The wild duck … swim in the water-carriers in the great irrigated meadows.
c. dial. A rain-cloud.
a. 1887. Jefferies, Field & Hedgerow (1889), 16. The water-carriers, harnessed to the south and west winds, drilling the long rows of rain like seeds into the earth.
