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Definition of brackish
1 : somewhat salty brackish water
2a : not appealing to the taste brackish teab : repulsive a brackish personality
brackishness
nounRead the Latest from M-W
brackish was our Word of the Day on 05/02/2007. Hear the podcast!
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Examples of brackish in a Sentence
the office coffee is often some brackish brew that's been sitting around for a couple of hours
the river becomes brackish as we approach the tidemark
Recent Examples of brackish from the Web
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Diamondback terrapins, which live along the coast from Texas to New England, are the only U.S. turtle that lives in brackish waters.
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The brackish waters of Chesapeake Bay hide an Atlantis of early American settlements that have slowly succumbed to the sea since early Americans colonized them in the mid-1600s.
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The proposed well on the western edge of Lake Arlington would have collected excess gas and brackish, or salty, water produced by the company’s natural gas wells in the immediate area.
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That’s revealing mud, rocks, algae, brackish water and slime on parts of the Greenbelt and nearby riverside.
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Coston said more will be known soon about how drinking brackish Delta water may have affected the pigs’ health.
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About $2 million intended for a study on brackish groundwater was also defunded.
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As their name suggests, banded water snakes like to hang out in Louisiana's freshwater and brackish bodies, especially swamps.
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Biologists had largely dismissed the first attacks as flukes, and in any case sharks were all but unknown in those brackish waters.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'brackish'. Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Did You Know?
When the word brackish first appeared in English in the 1500s, it simply meant "salty," as did its Dutch ancestor "brak." Then, as now, brackish water could simply be a mixture of saltwater and freshwater. Since that time, however, "brackish" has developed the additional meanings of "unpalatable" or "distasteful" - presumably because of the undrinkable quality of saltwater. "The brackish water that we drink / Creeps with a loathsome slime, / And the bitter bread they weigh in scales / Is full of chalk and lime." As this use from Oscar Wilde's "Ballad of Reading Gaol" illustrates, brackish water can also include things other than salt that make it unpleasant to drink.
Origin and Etymology of brackish
Dutch brac salty; akin to Middle Low German brac salty
Other Ecology Terms
BRACKISH Defined for English Language Learners
BRACKISH Defined for Kids
brackish
playDefinition of brackish for Students
: somewhat salty brackish water
Learn More about brackish
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See words that rhyme with brackish Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for brackish Spanish Central: Translation of brackish Nglish: Translation of brackish for Spanish speakers
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