I am trying to workshop Judah's limerick on "pirate stream," but this is the only definition I can find of it:

Pirate stream: A stream that captures the headwaters of another stream.

Here is the limerick:

A stream gently flowed in this bed
Till a pirate stream cut off its head,
By steering a course
That captured its source;
In a waterless grave now, it's dead.

Author's Note: Geologists can use some surprisingly colorful language.

I've not heard the phrase before. Does this definition make sense?

Google only gets 69 hits for the phrase but they do seem to bear out the definition.

One question though, isn't this word a very long way outside the current range (like about thirty years away)?

That's what I wondered, Bob! Is Judah perhaps defining "bed"?

Apparently another term for it is beheaded stream and that's the one being used as the defined word.

Yes, it was for "beheaded stream." Sorry, I should have been more clear.

What is meant, do you think, by the waterless grave? Does that fit? It just doesn't make sense to me, and I wanted to know if I am missing something before I comment there.

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
What is meant, do you think, by the waterless grave?

The stream was "alive" when it had water in it. A pirate stream "cut off its head" and "captured its source," leaving it dead and waterless.

Tinman

Well, thank you, Tinman. The problem was that I hadn't completely understood the term "pirate stream."