1. A hole or depression in which water collects, a pond or pool; a reservoir. Obs. exc. dial. and Colonial.
1679. in Picton, L’pool Munic. Rec. (1883), I. 315. Wee order that … two dangerous water holes close by the foote waye neere Richard Jones house on the heath, bee filled upp.
a. 1774. Fergusson, Mut. Compl. Plainstanes & Cansey, 126. O’ three shillings Scottish souk him, Or in the water-hole sair douk him.
1817. Oxley, Jrnls. Two Exped. N. S. Wales (1820), 154. At the eighth mile we came upon a small water-hole, which our poor horses soon emptied.
1843. Marryat, M. Violet, xxi. We rode briskly along till sun-down, and encamped by the side of a small water-hole, formed by a hollow in the prairie.
1875. Spectator (Melbourne), 20 June, 94/1. A bottomless waterhole, about 300 feet wide, exists at Maryvale homestead, Gipps Land.
1903. Kipling, Five Nations, 57. Tracked me by the camps I’d quitted—used the water-holes I’d hollowed.
b. A cavity in the bed of a river, esp., in Colonial use, one that retains water when the river itself is dry.
1792. Osbaldiston, Brit. Sportsman, 369. Grope to, or tickle, among fishers, signifies putting ones hand into water-holes where fish lie.
1848. Westgarth, Australia Felix, 19. The courses of all the rivers, with scarcely any exception, exhibit a series of ponds or water-holes.
1867. E. P. Ramsay, in Ibis, III. 413. The Musk-Duck frequents alike the lakes, lagoons, rivers, and even the creeks and water-holes.
1890. Goldfields of Victoria, 26. The dry weather has reduced Bossy Creek to a mere string of water-holes.
† 2. Naut. A hole to allow the escape of water (see quot.). Obs. rare.
1794. Rigging & Seamanship, I. 117. A water-hole, from 4 to 6 inches in diameter, is made in the second cloth from each leech [in Spritsail Course].
Hence Water-holing, the operation of trenching between the plants in the cultivation of coffee.
1880. Spons’ Encycl. Industr. Arts, etc., II. 698. A third operation is called ‘trenching’ or ‘waterholing.’ The trenches are made across the slope, and may be either open or closed.
