Definition of "oxbow" []

• A U-shaped piece of wood that fits under and around the neck of an ox, with its upper ends attached to the bar of the yoke. (noun)
• A U-shaped bend in a river. (noun)
• The land within such a bend of a river. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Mine were caught in oxbow lakes and meander scars in southwest Alabama."
• "The Chicago Tribune called the oxbow an “outrage” perpetrated by “a set of unprincipled swindlers” intent on “building the road at the largest possible expense to the Government and the least possible expense to themselves.”"
• "Over time (from decades to millennia) these river courses meander across the floodplain, resulting in ever-changing geomorphology and heterogeneous landscape with a diversity of elements such as oxbow lakes, levees, meander swales, and point bars."