Reservoir vs. Lake — What's the Difference?

A reservoir (; from French réservoir [ʁezɛʁvwaʁ]) is most commonly an enlarged natural or artificial lake created using a dam to store water. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of water, interrupting a watercourse to form an embayment within it, through excavation, or building any number of retaining walls or levees.

A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, apart from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although like the much larger oceans, they form part of Earth's water cycle.

A natural or artificial pond or lake used for the storage and regulation of water.

A large area of water surrounded by land

A receptacle or chamber for storing a fluid.

An insoluble pigment made by combining a soluble organic dye and an insoluble mordant.

An underground accumulation of petroleum or natural gas.

A large inland body of fresh water or salt water.

(Anatomy) See cisterna.

A scenic pond, as in a park.

A large or extra supply; a reserve

A large pool of liquid

(Medicine) An organism or population that directly or indirectly transmits a pathogen while being virtually immune to its effects.

A pigment consisting of organic coloring matter with an inorganic, usually metallic base or carrier, used in dyes, inks, and paints.

A place where anything is kept in store.

A deep red.

A large natural or artificial lake used as a source of water supply.

A large, landlocked stretch of water or similar liquid.

A small intercellular space, often containing resin, essential oil, or some other secreted matter.

A large amount of liquid; as, a wine lake.

A supply or source of something.

A small stream of running water; a channel for water; a drain.

A species that acts as host to a zoonosis when it is not causing acute illness in other susceptible species.

(obsolete) A pit, or ditch.

(computing) A "black box" component that receives an input signal to be read out and mapped by another process, as part of reservoir computing.

(obsolete) An offering, sacrifice, gift.

(transitive) To store or keep (something) in or as in a reservoir.

(dialectal) Play; sport; game; fun; glee.

A place where anything is kept in store; especially, a place where water is collected and kept for use when wanted, as to supply a fountain, a canal, or a city by means of aqueducts, or to drive a mill wheel, or the like.

(obsolete) A kind of fine, white linen.

A small intercellular space, often containing resin, essential oil, or some other secreted matter.

In dyeing and painting, an often fugitive crimson or vermillion pigment derived from an organic colorant (cochineal or madder, for example) and an inorganic, generally metallic mordant.

A large quantity of infectious microorganisms resident in animals other than man, potentially capable of being transmitted to humans.

In the composition of colors for use in products intended for human consumption, made by extending on a substratum of alumina, a salt prepared from one of the certified water-soluble straight colors.

A large quantity of infectious microorganisms or parasites resident in animals other than man, potentially capable of being transmitted to humans; especially, such organisms in animals where they do little or no harm to the host.

(obsolete) To present an offering.

A large supply or stock of anything which may be rapidly put to use; a reserve.

To leap, jump, exert oneself, play.

A large or extra supply of something;

To make lake-red.

Lake used to store water for community use

A pigment formed by combining some coloring matter, usually by precipitation, with a metallic oxide or earth, esp. with aluminium hydrate; as, madder lake; Florentine lake; yellow lake, etc.

Tank used for collecting and storing a liquid (as water or oil)

A kind of fine white linen, formerly in use.

Anything (a person or animal or plant or substance) in which an infectious agent normally lives and multiplies;

A large body of water contained in a depression of the earth's surface, and supplied from the drainage of a more or less extended area.

To play; to sport.

A body of (usually fresh) water surrounded by land

A purplish red pigment prepared from lac or cochineal

Any of numerous bright translucent organic pigments