the circulation of the earth's water, in which water evaporates from the sea into the atmosphere, where it condenses and falls as rain or snow, returning to the sea by rivers or returning to the atmosphere by evapotranspiration
Also called: hydrologic cycle
water cycle in American English
the continuous cycle in which water changes from water vapor in the atmosphere to liquid water throughcondensation and precipitation and then back to water vapor through evaporation, transpiration, and respiration