silt
pronunciation
How to pronounce silt in British English:
UK [sɪlt]
How to pronounce silt in American English:
US [sɪlt]
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- Noun:
- mud or clay or small rocks deposited by a river or lake
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- Verb:
- become chocked with silt
Word Origin
- silt
- silt: [15] The likelihood is that silt originally referred to the mud in salt flats by river estuaries, and that it is etymologically related to salt. It was probably borrowed from a Scandinavian word – Danish and Norwegian have the apparently related sylt ‘salt marsh’.=> salt
- silt (n.)
- mid-15c., originally "sediment deposited by seawater," probably from a Scandinavian source (compare Norwegian and Danish sylt "salt marsh"), or from Middle Low German or Middle Dutch silte, sulte "salt marsh, brine," from Proto-Germanic *sultjo- (cognates: Old English sealt, Old High German sulza "saltwater," German Sulze "brine"), from PIE *sal- (see salt (n.)).
- silt (v.)
- "to become choked with silt" (of river channels, harbors, etc.), 1799, from silt (n.). Related: Silted; silting.
Example
- 1. Pollution , silt and landslides have plagued the reservoir area .
- 2. This means the silt is no longer deposited on farmlands by thenile 's rising waters .
- 3. Radioactive cesium has a tendency to bind with earth , and flow along with silt in water .
- 4. Silt has accumulated , and a fifth of the city 's daily waste gets tossed into rivers and canals .
- 5. It tastes like I imagine pond silt might taste , with fibrous strands of celery and hard lumps of carrot that have escaped the blender .