Wikipedia
Gracht
Gracht (plural: grachten) is a Dutch word frequently encountered by non- Dutch people when confronted with several things related to the Netherlands, such as Dutch art (e.g. 17th-century town-views of grachten), Dutch history ( Anne Frank House on the Prinsengracht) or tourism (boating tours on the grachten of Amsterdam). The word cannot be easily translated; for this reason, it is necessary to distinguish between four related terms:
- A (literally meaning canal) is a manmade water course, usually in the countryside, irrespective of whether it has streets along its banks.
- A is a canal essentially used for transport rather than, for instance, drainage. Like most kanalen, they are usually in the countryside.
- A (city-canal) is a waterway in the city with streets on both sides of the water. The streets are lined with houses, often in a closed front. (In rare exceptions there is only one street, where on the other side of the waterway the houses border on the water; see the photograph "Example of half a gracht".)
- A is by origin a water-filled moat which surrounds a city for defense purposes. When the city expands, the singel is incorporated in the city’s structure and cannot be distinguished any more from a gracht, although the name ‘singel’ is usually maintained. As such, singels often encircle (older) parts of the city. But in other cases regular grachten were dug in circles as well, like the famous grachtengordel (canal-belt) of Amsterdam.
Although the word gracht means "canal" or "waterway" in the general sense, there no exact equivalent for the term in English, therefore it is best left untranslated.