What is the difference between pans, ponds and dams?

There are alpine lakes in the Sierra Nevada of California that I would call ponds, there are beaver ponds in the Rockies that seem named exactly right, and after walking on the shore of Thoreau's Walden Pond, I'd call it a lake. So the distinction can sometimes be a matter of local usage. read more

As nouns the difference between dams and pond is that dams is while pond is an inland body of standing water, either natural or man-made, that is smaller than a lake. As verbs the difference between dams and pond is that dams is (dam) while pond is to block the flow of water so that it can escape only through evaporation or seepage; to dam. read more