brackish
/ˈbɹækɪʃ/
brackish adjective: of water, salty or slightly salty, as a mixture of fresh and sea water, such as that found in estuaries.
Adjective
brackish (comparative more brackish, superlative most brackish)
- 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
- On all sides a powerful brackish marshland odor, the odor of damp, and decay, and black earth, black water.1992, Joyce Carol Oates, Black Water, Penguin Books, paperback edition, page 4.
- 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
- Therefore the bread he had to eat
- Repulsive.
brackish meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada
brackish in Tamil
- உப்புத்தன்மை, சவரான, சிறிது உப்பான
brackish in Urdu
- کھارا, شور
brackish in Malayalam
- saline, slightly salty, salt
- ഓരുള്ള, നേരിയ ഉപ്പുരസമുള്ള, ക്ഷാരമായ, ലവണ, ലാവണ, ഊഷവത്ത്
brackish in Kannada
- ಸವುಳು, ಚವುಳು, ಕರಲು
More languagesFewer languages
- brackish in Tagalog
- matabsing
- brackish in Arabic
- آسِن ʔāsin, زُعَاق zuʕāq
- brackish in Indonesian
- payau
- brackish in Thai
- กร่อย grɔ̀i
- brackish in Vietnamese
- lợ
Forms of brackish
| comparative | more brackish |
|---|---|
| superlative | most brackish |
Origin of brackish
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.
Words formed from brackish
Phrases with brackish
Words that rhyme with brackish
Questions about brackish
- What does brackish mean?
- Brackish means of water, salty or slightly salty, as a mixture of fresh and sea water, such as that found in estuaries.
- What is brackish in Tamil?
- Brackish in Tamil is உப்புத்தன்மை, சவரான, சிறிது உப்பான. See Brackish meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is brackish?
- Brackish is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce brackish?
- Brackish is pronounced /ˈbɹækɪʃ/.
Words near brackish in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: brackish (page history and authors); brackish (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); brackish (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); brackish (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); brackish (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-AnotherFriendlyHuman-brackish.wav.
Cite this entry: “brackish.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/brackish. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.