in physiology, a simple fluid, and liquid body, reputed the third of the four vulgar elements. See Chemistry, p. 67, and Hydrostatics.

Holy Water, a water prepared every Sunday in the Roman church, with divers prayers, exorcisms, &c. used by the people to cross themselves withal at their entrance to and going out of church; and pretended to have the virtue of washing away venial sins, driving away devils, preserving from thunder, dissolving charms, securing from, or curing diseases, &c. Many of the reformed take the use of holy water to have been borrowed from the lustral water of the ancient Romans.

Water Ordeal, or Trial, among our ancestors, was of two kinds, by hot and by cold water. Trial or purgation, by boiling or hot water, was a way of proving crimes, by immersing the body, or the arm, in hot water, with divers religious ceremonies. In the judgment by boiling water, the accused, or he who perforated the accused, was obliged to put his naked arm into a caldron full of boiling water, and to draw out a stone thence placed at a greater or less depth, according to the quality of the crime. This done, the arm was wrapped up, and the judge set his seal on the cloth; and at the end of three days they returned to view it; when if it were found without any scald, the accused was declared innocent. The nobles or great personages purged themselves thus by hot water, and the populace by cold water. The trial, or purgation, by cold water, was thus: After certain prayers and other ceremonies, the accused was swaddled or tied up all in a pelotoon or lump, and thus cast into a river, lake, or vessel of cold water; where if he sunk, he was held criminal. If he floated, innocent.

In the Levitical law, we find mention made of water which served to prove whether or no a woman was an adulteress; the formula, as it was performed by the priest, may be seen in the fifth chapter of the book of Numbers.

Water, among jewellers, is properly the colour or lustre of diamonds and pearls. The term, though it's properly, is sometimes used for the hue or colour of other stones.

Water Beetle, in zoology. See Dytiscus.

Water borne, in the sea-language. A ship is said to be water-borne, when she is where there is no more water than will barely bear her from the ground; or when lying even with the ground, she first begins to float or swim.

Water colours, in painting, are such colours as are only diluted and mixed up with gum-water, in contradiction to oil-colours.

Water gang, a channel cut to drain a place by carrying off a stream of water.

Water-line of a Ship, a line which distinguishes that part of her under water from that above, when she is duly laden.

Water-men, are such as row in boats, or ply on the river Thames, in the government of whom the lord-mayor of London, and court of aldermen there, had always great power. They still have the appointing of their fares, the taking more than which makes them liable to a fine of 40s. and half a year's imprisonment.

Water-shoot, a young sprig which springs out of the root or stock of a tree.

Water shot, in the sea-language, a sort of riding at anchor, when a ship is moored neither cro's the tide, nor right up and down, but quartering betwixt both.

Water-table, in architecture, a sort of ledge left in stone. stone or brick-walls, about eighteen or twenty inches from the ground, from which place the thickness of the wall begins to abate.

Water way, in a ship, is a small ledge of timber, lying fore and aft on the deck, close by her sides, to keep the water from running down there.

Water-works, in general, denote all manner of machines moved by, or employed in raising or sustaining water; in which sense, water-mills of all kinds, sluices, aqueducts, &c. may be called water-works. See Hydrostatics.