waterfall

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

Waterfall is the general, everyday word for any place where a river or stream drops over a steep edge. Cascade suggests a smaller, often multi-stepped waterfall, and carries a more picturesque or gentle feeling — you might describe a garden feature as a 'cascade' but not a 'cataract'. Falls is the word most often used in proper names (Niagara Falls, Iguazu Falls) and works for waterfalls of any size, though it commonly appears in the plural. Cataract is the most formal and dramatic of the four, reserved for very large, powerful waterfalls with a tremendous volume of water — for example, 'the cataracts of the Nile' or 'the great cataract at Victoria Falls'. In everyday conversation, native speakers almost always say 'waterfall'; the other three are less frequent and stylistically marked.

Common collocations

Etymology

Waterfall is formed from two Old English words: 'wæter' (water) and 'feallan' (to fall). The same compound structure appears in other Germanic languages — German 'Wasserfall', Dutch 'waterval', and Swedish 'vattenfall' are all built the same way. The word replaced the earlier Old English term 'wæderġefeall' sometime during the Middle English period.