pond

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: pŏnd, IPA^(key): /pɒnd/
• (General American) enPR: pänd, IPA^(key): /pɑnd/

• Audio (GA)

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• Homophone: pawned (in accents with the cot–caught merger)
• Rhymes: -ɒnd

From Middle English pond, ponde (“pond, pool”), probably from Old English *pond, *pand (attested in placenames), a variant of *pund (“enclosure”). Doublet of pound.

A pond

pond (plural ponds)

1. An inland body of standing water, either natural or man-made, that is smaller than a lake.
   • 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter VIII, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:

     But when the moon rose and the breeze awakened, and the sedges stirred, and the cat's-paws raced across the moonlit ponds, and the far surf off Wonder Head intoned the hymn of the four winds, the trinity, earth and sky and water, became one thunderous symphony—a harmony of sound and colour silvered to a monochrome by the moon.

2. An inland body of standing water of any size that is fed by springs rather than by a river.
3. (informal) Chiefly in across the pond: the Atlantic Ocean.

   I wonder how they do this on the other side of the pond.

   I haven’t been back home across the pond in twenty years.

pond (third-person singular simple present ponds, present participle ponding, simple past and past participle ponded)

1. (transitive) To block the flow of water so that it can escape only through evaporation or seepage; to dam.
   • 2004, Calvin W. Rose, An Introduction to the Environmental Physics of Soil, Water and Watersheds‎, →ISBN, page 201:

     The rate of fall of the surface of water ponded over the soil within the ring gives a measure of the infiltration rate for the particular enclosed area.

2. (transitive) To make into a pond; to collect, as water, in a pond by damming.
3. (intransitive) To form a pond; to pool.

Clipping of ponder.

pond (third-person singular simple present ponds, present participle ponding, simple past and past participle ponded)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To ponder.
   • 1579, Spenser, The Shepheardes Calender:

     Pleaseth you, pond your suppliant's plaint.

• DNOP

From Dutch pond, from Middle Dutch pont, pond, from Old Dutch punt, from Proto-Germanic *pundą (“pound, weight”), borrowed from Latin pondō.

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pond (plural ponds)

1. pound (currency)

   Tot 1961, was die Suid-Afrikaanse pond onderverdeel in 20 sjielings. ― Until 1961, the South African pound was subdivided into 20 shillings.

2. pound (unit of weight)

From Middle Dutch pont, pond, from Old Dutch punt, from Proto-Germanic *pundą (“pound, weight”), borrowed from Latin pondō.

• IPA^(key): /pɔnt/

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• Hyphenation: pond
• Rhymes: -ɔnt
• Homophone: pont

pond n (plural ponden, diminutive pondje n)

1. unit of mass, often broadly similar to 500 grams
   1. metric pound (500 grams)

      Hij gaat een pondje kaas kopen op de markt. ― He is going to buy a pound (500 g) of cheese at the market.

   2. (imperial units) pound (453.6 grams)
   3. (historical) pound, any of several local units, with a range between 420 and 500 grammes, divided into 16 historical ounces
   4. (historical, Dutch metric system) kilogram
2. one of several monetary units
   1. British pound, pound sterling (currency)

      Ik heb nog wat ponden van mijn vakantie in Wales. ― I still have a few pounds left over from my holiday in Wales.

   2. Egyptian pound
   3. (historical) Flemish pound

• Afrikaans: pond
• Berbice Creole Dutch: pontu
• Negerhollands: pond, pon
• → Caribbean Javanese: pun
• → Munsee: poonthee
• → Unami: punthikan

• IPA^(key): /pɔ̃/

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• Homophone: ponds

pond

1. third-person singular present indicative of pondre