Back Water
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary · Walter A. Shumaker and George Foster Longsdorf; ed. James C. Cahill · 1922
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary
That water in a stream which, in consequence of some obstruction below, is detained or checked in its course, or reflows. The term is usually employed to designate the water which is turned back, by a dam erected in the stream below, upon the wheel of a mill above, so as to retard its revolution.