silt

Definition

Mud or fine earth deposited from running or standing water.

Etymology

PIE word *séh₂ls From Middle English silte, cilte, cylte, perhaps from Middle English silen ("to filter; strain"; equivalent to sile + -t), or cognate with Norwegian and Danish sylt (“salt marsh”), Middle Low German sulte (“salt-marsh”), German Sülze (“meat in aspic”), ultimately from Proto-Germanic *sultijō (“salty water; brine”). Related to Old English sealt (“salt”).

Example Sentences

• "A large tube is then followed over several silt banks to surface after a total dive of 200 m in a large passage containing an active streamway – The San Agustin Way. 5 m before the passage surfaces another line junction is passed, ..."
• "Above the lower headcut, phreatophytic mesquite and little leaf sumac hug the banks, drawing pendulate water from the silts remaining from former marsh deposits and sending long taproots into channel stores."
• "The gravels, initially deposited by surf-zone processes during the Pleistocene low stands in this area were drowned by quartzose sands, and then the prodeltaic silts and clays deposited by the seaward prograding-feather edge of the Holocene Orange Delta were subsequently integrated into the delta-front by bioturbation."

Related Words