Levee Levee A levee (), dike, dyke, embankment, floodbank or stopbank is an elongated naturally occurring ridge or artificially constructed fill or wall, which regulates water levels. It is usually earthen and often parallel to the course of a river in its floodplain or along low-lying coastlines. Speakers of American English (notably in the Midwest and Deep South), use the word "levee", from the French word "levée" (from the feminine past participle of the French verb "lever", "to raise"). It originated in New Orleans a few years after the city's founding in 1718 and was later adopted by English speakers. The
Transepidermal water loss of the acronym "TEWL" for transepidermal water loss avoids this ambiguity. As with many other acronyms in biology and medicine (for example, polymorphonuclear [PMN], bronchioloalveolar carcinoma [BAC], dolutegravir [DTG]), there is no law preventing the letters of the acronym from representing combining forms ("trans-" + "epidermal") or other syllables irrespective of word boundaries. Transepidermal water loss Transepidermal water loss (TEWL or TWL) is the loss of water that passes from inside a body (animal or plant) through the epidermis (that is, either the epidermal layer of animal skin or the epidermal layer of plants) to the surrounding atmosphere via diffusion