waterfast

1) The OED has examples of this word from the sixteenth century, in my sense of ‘waterproof’, but in coal-mining it was used occasionally of a pit or gallery that could not be worked because it was flooded.

1701 Nathaniel Booth of Popeley his Coalpitt being watter Fast Coals cannot be gotten in it

1710 hath sunke 8˝ yd left of being fast with watter, Farnley.

dates 1701 1710

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