tailwater

English

Etymology

From tail +‎ water.

Noun

tailwater (countable and uncountable, plural tailwaters)

1. The water located immediately downstream from a hydraulic structure, such as a dam, bridge, or culvert.
   • 2008 May 27, Peter Kaminsky, “Rules for Reservoirs Pose Threat to Trout Population”, in New York Times‎^[1]:

     Like the more renowned Missouri and Henry’s Fork of Montana and Idaho, it is a tailwater fishery; that is, it owes its remarkable fecundity and its population of big wild trout to the cold-water outflow of reservoir impoundment.