A mill pond (or millpond) is a body of water used as a reservoir for a water-powered mill. Mill ponds were often created through the construction of a mill dam across a waterway. In many places, the common proper name Mill Pond name has remained even though the mill has long since gone. It may be fed by a man-made stream, known by several terms including leat and mill stream.
The term mill pond is often used colloquially to refer to a very flat body of water. Witnesses of the loss of RMS Titanic reported that the sea was "like a mill pond".
Famous quotes containing the words mill and/or pond:
“My temptation is quiet.
Here at life’s end
Neither loose imagination,
Nor the mill of the mind
Consuming its rag and bone,
Can make the truth known.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“There have been many stories told about the bottom, or rather no bottom, of this pond, which certainly had no foundation for themselves. It is remarkable how long men will believe in the bottomlessness of a pond without taking the trouble to sound it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)