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Puddle vs Runoff - What's the difference?

puddle | runoff |

As nouns the difference between puddle and runoff

is that puddle is a small pool of water, usually on a path or road while runoff is that portion of precipitation or irrigation on an area which does not infiltrate or evaporate, but instead is discharged from the area.

As a verb puddle

is to form a puddle.

puddle

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A small pool of water, usually on a path or road.
  • * 1596 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , IV.5:
    • And fast beside a little brooke did pas / Of muddie water, that like puddle stank […].
  • * 1624 , , Generall Historie , in Kupperman 1988, p. 90:
    • searching their habitations for water, we could fill but three barricoes, and that such puddle , that never till then we ever knew the want of good water.
  • A homogeneous mixture of clay, water, and sometimes grit, used to line a canal or pond to make it watertight.

    • Verb

    (puddl)
  • To form a puddle.
  • To play or splash in a puddle.
  • To process iron by means of puddling.
  • To line a canal with puddle (clay).
  • To collect ideas, especially abstract concepts, into rough subtopics or categories, as in study, research or conversation.
  • To make (clay, loam, etc.) dense or close, by working it when wet, so as to render impervious to water.
  • To make foul or muddy; to pollute with dirt; to mix dirt with (water).
  • * Shakespeare
    • Some unhatched practice / Hath puddled his clear spirit.

    runoff

    English

    (wikipedia runoff)

    Alternative forms

    * run-off

    Noun

  • That portion of precipitation or irrigation on an area which does not infiltrate or evaporate, but instead is discharged from the area.
  • Dissolved chemicals, etc, included in such water.
    • The runoff of nitrates is poisoning the lake.
  • A second or further round of an indecisive election, after other candidates (often all but the last two) have been eliminated,
    • There will now be a runoff as neither front runner received more than 50% of the vote.
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2012 , date=April 23 , author=Angelique Chrisafis , title=François Hollande on top but far right scores record result in French election , work=the Guardian citation , page= , passage= It is one of the left's best ever results and will raise momentum for next month's final runoff where only the two candidates will compete against each other.}}

    Derived terms

    * surface runoff