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When the word brackish first appeared in English in the 1500s, it simply meant "salty," as did its Dutch parent brak. (English speakers also adopted the synonymous brack from the same source but it gets very little use.) Then, as now, brackish was used to describe water that was a mixture of saltwater and freshwater, such as one encounters where a river meets the sea. Since that time, however, brackish has developed the additional meanings of "unpalatable" and "repulsive," presumably because of the oozy, mucky, and sometimes stinky (or stinkyish, if you prefer)—not just salty—qualities of coastal estuaries and swamps.
Examples of brackish in a Sentence
Amy Graff, New York Times, 3 May 2025
This all Saul sang, did sing, selah and limping there,
brackish to the very
crotch and destitute.
—Timmy Straw, Harpers Magazine, 30 Apr. 2025
Photograph: Oregon State University A new species of bacteria that functions like electrical wiring has recently been discovered on a brackish beach in Oregon.
—Ritsuko Kawai, Wired News, 5 May 2025
Because of pollution, depletion, and seepage of water from the sea, the groundwater was of poor quality—brackish and salty, with a high level of chemicals.
—Claudine Ebeid, The Atlantic, 6 Feb. 2025
See All Example Sentences for brackish
Cite this Entry
“Brackish.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/brackish. Accessed 10 Jul. 2025.
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brackish
adjective
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