Meanings
plural hydronyms
- The name of a river, lake, sea or any other body of water.
A river name is a hydronym, a name of a body of water. The whole stock of hydronyms in a district, territory, country, or the like is called its hydronymy.
2016, Svante Strandberg, “River Names”, in Carole Hough, Daria Izdebska, editors, The Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming, Oxford: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 1053 more examples
Numerous hydronyms of Asia Minor, attested in the historical Anatolian languages and going back to Proto-Anatolian, can be compared to the Indo-European derivational type of hydronyms in *-ntʰ-. […] Another hydronym of Proto-Anatolian origin and having wide Indo-European connections is Alda, a river in Asia Minor […]
1995, Thomas V. Gamkrelidze, Vjačeslav V. Ivanov, “Proto-Indo-European in Space and Time, Based on Linguistic and Culture-historical Data [part 2, chapter 11]”, in Johanna Nichols, transl., edited by Werner Winter, Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans: A Reconstruction and Historical Analysis of a Proto-Language and Proto-Culture (Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs; 80), Berlin; New York, N.Y.: Mouton de Gruyter, →ISBN, page 760Dutch Zijpe, Zijp (and regional variants) is found in toponyms, e.g. the poulder De/Het Zijpe in the province of North-Holland, the name of the castle Sijpestein (Nieuw-Loosdrecht), […] We are dealing with an old hydronym.
2000, Dirk Boutan, Maarten Kossmann, “On the Etymology of Dutch Zijpe”, in Dirk Boutkan, Arend Quak, editors, Language Contact: Substratum, Superstratum, Adstratum in Germanic Languages (Amsterdamer Beiträge Zur Älteren Germanistik; 54), Amsterdam: Rodopi, →ISBN, page 31Considering the fact that the Yeneseic languages are historically spoken along almost the entire length of the Yenesei from the Minusinsk basin to the Arctic zone it is curious that no Common Yeneseic name for the river seems to have been preserved in the linguistic material. […] A hydronym that possibly belongs to this context is Kezes, which has been derived from Ket (*)qä-ses 'large water' […]
2012, Juha Janhunen, “Etymological and Ethnohistorical Aspects of the Yenesei”, in Marek Stachowski, editor, Studia Etymologica Cracoviensia, volume 17, Kraków: Jagiellonian University Press, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 73
Origin
- Proto-Indo-European*wed-
- Proto-Indo-European*wódr̥
- Proto-Hellenic*údōr
- Ancient Greekῡ̆̔́δωρ (hū̆́dōr)
- Ancient Greekῠ̔δρο- (hŭdro-)
- Englishhydro-
- Ancient Greekὄνυμα (ónuma)
- Englishhydronym
From hydro- (“water”) + -onym (“name”).
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Catalan hidrònim
- hidrònimname of a body of water
Czech hydronymum
- hydronymumname of a body of water
Danish hydronym
- hydronymname of a body of water
Dutch hydroniem
- hydroniemname of a body of water
Estonian veekogunimi, hüdronüüm
- veekoguniminame of a body of water
- hüdronüümname of a body of water
- veteniminame of a body of water
Finnish vesistönimi, hydronyymi
- vesistöniminame of a body of water
- hydronyyminame of a body of water
French hydronyme
- hydronymename of a body of water
German Gewässername, Hydronym
- Gewässernamename of a body of water
- Hydronymname of a body of water
Greek υδρωνύμιο
- υδρωνύμιο (ydronýmio)name of a body of water
Hungarian víznév, hidronima
- víznévname of a body of water
- hidronimaname of a body of water
Italian idronimo
- idronimoname of a body of water
Lithuanian vandénvardis, hidroni̇̀mas
- vandénvardisname of a body of water
- hidroni̇̀masname of a body of water
Polish hydronim
- hydronimname of a body of water
Portuguese hidrónimo, hidrônimo
- hidrónimoname of a body of water
- hidrônimoname of a body of water
Romanian hidronim
- hidronimname of a body of water
Russian гидро́ним
- гидро́ним (gidrónim)name of a body of water
Slovak hydronymum
- hydronymumname of a body of water
Spanish hidrónimo
- hidrónimoname of a body of water
Swedish hydronym
- hydronymname of a body of water
Ukrainian гiдронiм
- гiдронiм (hidronim)name of a body of water
Cite this entry
hydronym. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hydronym
“hydronym.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hydronym. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “hydronym,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hydronym.
Source: hydronym on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.