brackish
adj/ˈbɹækɪʃ/
Etymology From Scottish brack (from Middle Dutch brac (“brackish”)) + -ish. Cognate with Dutch brak (“brackish”), German Low German brack, brakerg, brakig (“brackish”), German brackig (“brackish”), Danish brak (“brackish”), Swedish bräck (“brackish”), Norwegian brakk (“brackish”). Perhaps a distant doublet of brook.
1
Geography, Hydrology, Natural sciences Of water, salty or slightly salty, as a mixture of fresh and sea water, such as that found in estuaries.
- ...by a low courſe and too long ſporting with the briny Ocean it taſts brackiſh and inſalubrious...1638, Sir Thomas Herbert, Some years travels into divers parts of Asia and Afrique:
- 1992, Joyce Carol Oates, Black Water, Penguin Books, paperback edition, page 4. On all sides a powerful brackish marshland odor, the odor of damp, and decay, and black earth, black water.
2 more examples
- 2004, David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, Random House. The water we took on at Chatham Isle is now brackish & without a dash of brandy in it, my stomach rebels.
- White Slough is a large tidal wetland full of brackish water from the Napa River that flows into the city of Vallejo from under Highway 37.2026 January 13, Ryan Geller, “A homeless Vallejo resident owns the city’s largest encampment. Now he’s pressured to evict his neighbors”, in Vallejo Sun, archived from the original on 15 Jan 2026:
2
Distasteful; unpleasant; not appealing to the taste.
- Therefore the bread he had to eat Seemed brackish, less like corn than tares;1881, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Poems. A New Edition, F.S. Ellis:
3
Repulsive.
- Derived terms
- brackishly, brackishness, brackish water, nonbrackish, unbrackish