Thirlmere

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A reservoir and lake in Cumbria, England, set among the fells of the Lake District and used to supply water to Manchester
2. An artificial lake in the north-west of England, nestled in the Lake District hills and valued as a source of drinking water
3. A body of water in the Cumbrian countryside of northern England, created as a reservoir to serve the city of Manchester

Etymology: Thirlmere is a long, narrow lake in the English Lake District, and its name is a plain Old Norse-influenced compound: "mere" is the common northern English word for a lake, and it sits beside a first element whose exact meaning is uncertain. "Thirl" is an old northern word meaning to pierce or bore through, so the name may describe a gap or a narrow opening in the surrounding fells, but this is a guess rather than a settled fact. The lake is better known for what happened to it than for its name. Its waters were raised and the lake turned into a reservoir to supply the city of Manchester, which flooded the valley's farmland and drew protests from defenders of the Lakeland landscape. Those protests helped shape the later preservation movement in the region.