The AI-powered English dictionary
plural cataracts
(obsolete) A waterspout.
A large waterfall; steep rapids in a river. examples
A flood of water. examples
(figuratively) An overwhelming downpour or rush. quotations examples
The palace bang’d, and buzz’d and clackt, / And all the long-pent stream of life / Dash’d downward in a cataract.
1842, Alfred Tennyson, “The Day-Dream. The Revival.”, in Poems. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], page 156
Were Niagara but a cataract of sand, would you travel your thousand miles to see it?
1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter I, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley
As if on cue came a cataract of explosions. She turned on her heel and scurried back to the courtyard and down into the school’s basement. The dirt floor, low ceiling and unfinished stone walls were barely illuminated by candles and a dim string of green decorative lights.
2022 May 19, James Verini, “Surviving the Siege of Kharkiv”, in The New York Times Magazine
(pathology) A clouding of the lens in the eye leading to a decrease in vision. quotations
Rarely, a dense, swollen neglected cataract precipitates an angle-closure glaucoma.
1999, J. J. Gallo, J. Busby-Whitehead, W. Reichel, P. V. Rabins, R. A. Silliman, Reichel’s Care of the Elderly, page 563