The waterside is the land right at the edge of water — the bank of a river, the shore of a lake, the edge of a canal. If you stand there, one more step and your shoes are wet. It is a quiet, gentle word, and it belongs to calm inland water more than to the open sea: rivers, lakes, canals, ponds.

Two ways to use it. As a noun: 'They walked down to the waterside.' As a describing word before a noun: 'a waterside café', 'a waterside path', 'a waterside village'. The second is very common in tourism and property writing — it makes a place sound peaceful and pretty, which is exactly why it appears in advertisements.

It is worth putting it beside its two near neighbours. 'Waterfront' is the town's edge — buildings, roads, docks, business. 'Waterside' is softer and more natural — the grassy bank, the willow trees, the quiet path. 'Shore' and 'coast' belong to the sea. So a fishing village has a waterside; a port city has a waterfront.

The word feels a little literary and a little old-fashioned, though not so old that it sounds strange. You will meet it in poems, in guidebooks and on menus more than in ordinary conversation, where most people just say 'by the river' or 'by the lake'.