Opinion of the Court
1426 (5th ed. 1979) (“especially in the plural, [water] may designate a body of water, such as a river, a lake, or an ocean, or an aggregate of such bodies of water, as in the phrases ‘foreign waters,’ ‘waters of the United States,’ and the like” (emphasis added)); Random House Dictionary of the English Language 2146 (2d ed. 1987) (Random House Dictionary) (defining “waters” as “a. flowing water, or water moving in waves: The river’s mighty waters. b. the sea or seas bordering a particular country or continent or located in a particular part of the world” (emphasis deleted)). This meaning is hard to reconcile with classifying “ ‘ “lands,” wet or otherwise, as “waters.” ’ ” Rapanos, 547 U. S., at 740 (plurality opinion) (quoting Riverside Bayview, 474 U. S., at 132).
This reading also helps to align the meaning of “the waters of the United States” with the term it is defining: “navigable waters.” See Bond v. United States, 572 U. S. 844, 861 (2014) (“In settling on a fair reading of a statute, it is not unusual to consider the ordinary meaning of a defined term, particularly when there is dissonance between that ordinary meaning and the reach of the definition”). Although we have acknowledged that the CWA extends to more than traditional navigable waters, we have refused to read “navigable” out of the statute, holding that it at least shows that Congress was focused on “its traditional jurisdiction over waters that were or had been navigable in fact or which could reasonably be so made.” SWANCC, 531 U. S., at 172; see also Appalachian Electric, 311 U. S., at 406–407; The Daniel Ball, 10 Wall., at 563. At a minimum, then, the use of “navigable” signals that the definition principally refers to bodies of navigable water like rivers, lakes, and oceans. See Rapanos, 547 U. S., at 734 (plurality opinion).
More broadly, this reading accords with how Congress has employed the term “waters” elsewhere in the CWA and
