brackish

adjective

brack·​ish ˈbra-kish 

1

: somewhat salty

brackish water

2

a

: not appealing to the taste

brackish tea

b

: repulsive

a brackish personality

brackishness noun

Did you know?

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.

Synonyms of brackish

• unappetizing
• unpalatable
• distasteful
• unsavory
• horrible
• nasty
• bland
• bad
• awful
• filthy
• yucky
• repulsive
• loathsome

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 on the Web

All those financial resources enhance the logic behind expensive projects like desalinating seawater and transporting it, desalinating local brackish groundwater or acquiring surplus water from some limited areas in California. —Austin Corona, AZCentral.com, 6 Nov. 2025

That includes the brackish water in aquifers that requires desalination, as well as reuse water that goes through additional treatment before being injected back into cities’ water supplies. —Matthew Adams, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 3 Nov. 2025

Some days, that meant giving her bits of macaroni, or rice cooked in brackish, unsafe water. —Literary Hub, 21 Oct. 2025

The freshwater table below the region would probably become brackish, but that water is barely used today anyway. —Big Think, 17 Oct. 2025

Word History

Etymology

Dutch brac salty; akin to Middle Low German brac salty

First Known Use

circa 1552, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for brackish

• blackish

Kids Definition

brackish

adjective

brack·​ish ˈbrak-ish 

: somewhat salty

brackish water