Word
silt
US/ˈsɪɫt/
UK/sˈɪlt/
Definitions
01fine sediment
n. very fine sand or earth that water carries and leaves behind as mud at the bottom of a river.
n. fine-grained sediment, typically ranging from 0.002 to 0.06 mm in diameter, deposited by moving water. Uncountable in general use.
“The river was brown and thick with silt after the heavy summer rain.”
“The delta is formed by the gradual accumulation of silt carried downstream by the river over thousands of years.”
Technical
02to fill with mud
v. to become blocked or filled with fine mud or sand.
v. to become choked or obstructed with silt; often used with the particle 'up'.
“The harbour started to silt up because the water was moving too slowly.”
“Without regular dredging, the canal will eventually silt up and become impassable for larger commercial vessels.”
Technical
Usage
Often used as the phrasal verb 'silt up'.
Real-World Examples
“Instead, when she reached Betrawati, the small riverside town where her family lived, she found only a flat expanse of hardened grey silt.” 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”).
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Domain
Scan code
englishreference.com/q/silt