1
: a reception held by a person of distinction on rising from bed
2
: an afternoon assembly at which the British sovereign or his or her representative receives only men
3
: a reception usually in honor of a particular person
the years of levees and parades and other suave peacetime occasions—
Gladys B. Stern
Gladys B. Stern1
a
: an embankment for preventing flooding
b
: a river landing place : pier
2
: a continuous dike or ridge (as of earth) for confining the irrigation areas of land to be flooded
Examples of levee in a Sentence
Noun (2)
the raging floodwaters were too much for the levee to handle
we tied the boat up at the levee and started unloading the fish we had caught
Recent Examples on the Web
Hannah Parry, MSNBC Newsweek, 27 Oct. 2025
Most of those rescues happened on the east side of Vallecito Creek, where a levee break caused rapid flooding.
—Lauren Penington, Denver Post, 12 Oct. 2025
Janee Bolden, MSNBC Newsweek, 29 Aug. 2025
The flood cycle is longer on the channeled and leveed Mississippi, which is fed by numerous tributaries.
—Amy Graff, New York Times, 3 May 2025
See All Example Sentences for levee
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Noun
Despite the downgrade, the storm unleashed catastrophic damage—particularly in New Orleans, where storm surge overwhelmed levees and flooded more than 80% of the city.
—Hannah Parry, MSNBC Newsweek, 27 Oct. 2025
Most of those rescues happened on the east side of Vallecito Creek, where a levee break caused rapid flooding.
—Lauren Penington, Denver Post, 12 Oct. 2025
Verb
In New Orleans, levee failures left about 80 percent of the city underwater, with some areas, like the Lower Ninth Ward, submerged under 12 feet of floodwater.
—Janee Bolden, MSNBC Newsweek, 29 Aug. 2025
The flood cycle is longer on the channeled and leveed Mississippi, which is fed by numerous tributaries.
—Amy Graff, New York Times, 3 May 2025
See All Example Sentences for levee
Cite this Entry
“Levee.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/levee. Accessed 4 Nov. 2025.
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