1. dial. A green lane with a stream running along it.
1872. Daily News, 24 Oct. Anything analogous to the leaping Chine of the Isle of Wight, the Guernsey Waterlane, or those noisy streamlets which abound in the hilly districts of Ireland.
a. 1876. M. Collins, Pen Sk. (1879), I. 173. The cool water-lanes of Guernsey.
1891. [D. Jordan & Mrs. J. A. Owen], Ann. Fishing Village, xi. 104. It was a water-lane—a public way for any cart-horse or cow that the owners might think fit to take there—as wide as an ordinary road.
2. A narrow passage of open water, e.g., between masses of reeds or between lines of shipping.
1883. G. C. Davies, Norf. Broads, ii. 15. We cross the Broad and the river, and enter a narrow water-lane between the reeds.
1898. Kipling, Fleet in Being, i. 2. A consort was coming up a waterlane, between two lines of shipping, just behind us.
