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A.Word.A.Day--artesian

This week's theme: toponyms -- words derived from the names of places.

artesian (ahr-TEE-zhuhn) adjective

Pertaining to a well that has water rising to the surface under natural pressure, without the need of a pump.

[After Artois, a former province in France, where many such wells were drilled.]

See more usage examples of artesian in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)

"When settlers first came to Pullman, they found artesian water bubbling out of the ground. A hundred years later, those springs are gone, and the source of this hydrological abundance continues to drop 1.5 feet per year. Water mining is just that -- and sooner or later, someone's going to have to pay the piper." Chuck Pezeshki; Seattle Post-Intelligencer; WSU, Enviros Teeing Off Over Water Rights; Sep 5, 2007.

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