What does wedel mean?
Wedel is an uncommon English noun for a fine spray or narrow jet of water, especially one rising from a fountain. The word is a borrowing from German, where Wedel can also mean a brush, tuft, or tail, but its established English use is the water jet. In descriptive writing, a wedel suggests something slender and forceful rather than the broad, diffuse mist implied by spray alone. It is therefore mostly encountered in descriptions of ornamental fountains and similar displays, not in ordinary household or weather-related speech. Although the vocabulary is unusual, it is useful where precision matters: it distinguishes a directed stream from a general cloud of droplets. Its Germanic ancestry also connects it with wade and waddle, reflecting an old sense of movement or wagging. In short, wedel adds a distinctly literary and architectural flavor to the description of moving water.
nounA fine spray or narrow jet of water, especially one rising from a fountain.
- A fine spray or narrow jet of water, especially one rising from a fountain.
"At dusk, a slender wedel of water rose above the fountain basin."
"A narrow wedel of water rose from the fountain."
"In his description of the baroque garden, the author praised the slender wedel above the basin."
The standard plural is wedels, although the word is rare and may be treated as uncountable when referring generally to spray.
"Three narrow wedels of water met above the basin."
Borrowed from a German word meaning both a brush or plume and a fountain jet, wedel gives moving water a remarkably elegant name.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Words that share this root
How wedel is actually used
This is a rare, chiefly literary or architectural word. It is more precise than spray when describing a distinct or directed jet of water and is uncommon in everyday speech.