1. a sport or leisure activity in which a person stands on long narrow boards calle
1.nounB1
Definition
a sport or leisure activity in which a person stands on long narrow boards called water skis and is pulled at speed across a body of water by a rope from a fast boat.
Example
The Watanabe family spent the whole afternoon waterskiing on the calm lake behind their cabin.
uncountable noun after 'spend [time] waterskiing'
Last summer, Noa tried waterskiing and stood up on her second attempt.
Adisa says waterskiing needs strong leg muscles and good balance to stay upright.
collocation: waterskiing needs [strength/skill]
Jack and his brother go waterskiing at the beach, skiing across the water behind a boat, every weekend.
pattern: go + waterskiing for regular activity
The waterskiing instructor showed Ziad how to hold the rope and keep his knees bent.
variant spelling with two words, equally common in British and American English
Word family
waterski
verbB2
waterskier
nounB2
water ski
nounB1
water skis
nounB1
Synonym discussion
Sense: noun/1
Water skiing and waterskiing are essentially the same activity, with the former being the two-word spelling more common in American publications and the latter the one-word form preferred in British and international sporting contexts. Waterski (used as a noun) is rare and usually appears in the plural form water skis to refer to the equipment, not the activity. Aquaplaning describes a completely different phenomenon — the loss of tyre traction on a wet road — and should never be confused with the sport.
Formed by combining water (from Old English wæter) and skiing (from ski, which comes from Old Norse skíð, meaning 'a piece of wood' or 'snowshoe'). The sport was developed independently in the United States and Europe during the early 1920s, with Ralph Samuelson of Minnesota often credited as the first person to waterski in 1922.