mill dam

Alternative forms

• milldam
• mill-dam

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈmɪldam/

Noun

mill dam (plural mill dams)

1. A dam constructed across a river or stream to raise the water level so that it can turn a millwheel; also, the millpond so created.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     the which, once being brust, / Like to a great Mill-damb forth fiercely gusht, / And powred out of her infernall sinke / Most ugly filth […]

   • 1832 December (indicated as 1833), Alfred Tennyson, “The Miller’s Daughter”, in Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, stanza I, page 33:

     He looked so joyy and so good— / While fishing in the milldam-water, / I laughed to see him as he stood, / And dreamt not of the miller's daughter.

   • 1960, Gottfried Keller, translated by AM Holt, Green Henry, Calder Publications, published 2010, page 456:

     I sat down on the wooden side of a mill-dam and thought over the past night and the strange adventure in the entrance-hall of Agnes' house.