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tank
dam, stock watering dam: the tank was empty. Compare dam.
Contributor's comments: Being someone from that region we regularly had "city slickers" calling our tanks dams - which they are not - we used to distinguish between a dam and a tank as follows: A Dam is, essentially, a wall blocking off a natural water course. That is you dig a hole in a position where water naturally flows putting a wall at one end and it fills with water. However a tank is different and is similar to a rainwater tank on the side of a house - you divert the water that normally flows off the roof (or surrounding hills) to the tank via guttering - if the guttering is damaged the tank will not fill. Historically, in the 1860s government tanks were dug every 15 miles (I think) between the Lachlan River near Lake Cargelligo (I think) and the Darling River at Fort Bourke (now Bourke) to provide a route for stock to travel - some of the tanks were filled from Artesian water some who filled by diverting the run-off from the surround hills. It was the process of digging these tanks in 1869 that copper was discovered in the Cobar area ("The Founding Fathers" is a book on Cobar's history that I'm sure is available at all good bookstalls - hehehe NOT)
Contributor's comments: Tank instead of dam, as it would be called in SA, is used in India & Sri Lanka too - probably a British term. When in our region (outback SA) we talk about a dam, (earthen station dam), some tourists expect a large Reservoir, as in Ord River Dam, not a tiny stock watering dam.
Contributor's comments: I was accustomed to 'dams' on my aunt and uncle's property at Narromine (1950s-60s). In the late 60s I went on fieldwork in western NSW and was surprised to find that around Cobar, dams became tanks. The dams on the Narromine property had low earth walls.
Contributor's comments: I grew up in the Riverina where depressions in the ground, natural or excavated, were called 'tanks'. Now living in the Hawkesbury they are referred to as 'dams'. So it seems that you have to get beyond the Great Dividing Range to call a tank a tank.
Contributor's comments: dam, man-made hole in ground used to store water for stock: "I found that runaway out by the three-mile tank."