bow wave

English

Bow wave

Noun

bow wave (plural bow waves)

1. The wave that forms at the bow of a ship as it moves through the water, and defines the outer limits of the ship's wake.
   • 1942, Neville Shute, chapter 11, in Pied Piper‎^[1], New York: William Morrow & Co:

     But in the half light of dawn, at about half past four, a destroyer came towards them from the west, throwing a deep, feathery bow wave of white foam aside as she cut through the water, bearing down on them.

   • 2022 April 20, “Network News: MPs pursue updates on progress of National Rail Contracts”, in RAIL, number 955, page 17:

     "They are not able to service every railway contract going to the market at the same time. It creates an artificial bow-wave of work and in some cases, like TransPennine, the nature of the infrastructure work means we want some continuity," he said.

Translations

a wave coming off the bow of a ship as it moves through the water

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 头波, 弓形波

• Danish: bovbølge c
• Dutch: boeggolf (nl) f
• German: Bugwelle (de) f
• Maori: piha, pihapiha

References

• “bow wave”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.