loess

Definition

Any sediment, dominated by silt, of eolian (wind-blown) origin.

Etymology

Borrowed from German Löss (“yellowish-gray soil”), from Alemannic German lösch (“loose”). Cognate with German los and English lease.

Example Sentences

• "The Yellow River—the “Sorrow of China”—comes down from the loess hills into the great plain of China on a gently sloping fan. The river has two possible outlets to the sea, the one north of the Shantung Peninsula into the Gulf of Chihli, the other some hundreds of miles to the south of the Peninsula."
• "The Yellow River got its name from the massive amount of fertile loess (yellow earth) which it has deposited in the wheat-growing North China Plain."
• "They blast their sand westwards across the steppe, coating the foothills of the Brooks Range in an icing-sugar dust of the loose, windblown sand-silt mixture known as loess."