Word.ws English Dictionary

lahar

/ˈlɑhɑɹ/

lahar noun: a volcanic mudflow.

lahar: a volcanic mudflow
Image: Tom Casadevall, USGS, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

lahar (plural lahars)

  1. A volcanic mudflow.
    • Such a highly destructive mud-flow (termed a lahar) eventually stops as a pile of debris of all shapes and sizes, as mixed up as a glacial moraine; the two deposits have often been confused.1985, Jocelyn Thornton, Field Guide to New Zealand Geology, page 204
    • Pyroclastic flows are often difficult to distinguish in outcrops from a similar type of fragmental debris flow known as lahars. Both are characteristically unstratified and unsorted. A deposit containing blocks of varied compositions with rounded shapes is more likely to have been formed by a lahar...2000, Jacques-Marie Bardintzeff, Alexander R. McBirney, Volcanology, page 138

lahar meaning in Malay and Indonesian

lahar in Malay

volcanic mudflow
lahar

lahar in Indonesian

volcanic mudflow
lahar

Examples of lahar in a sentence

  • Pyroclastic flows are often difficult to distinguish in outcrops from a similar type of fragmental debris flow known as lahars.2000, Jacques-Marie Bardintzeff, Alexander R. McBirney, Volcanology, page 138:
  • A regime of persistent lahar activity results when eruptive activity continually supplies unconsolidated volcanic material for remobilization.2006, Andrew J. L. Harris et al., “Downstream aggradation owing to lava dome extrusion and rainfall runoff at Volcán Santiaguito...

Forms of lahar

plurallahars

Origin of lahar

Borrowed from Javanese ꦭꦲꦂ (lahar). Introduced as geological term by Berend George Escher in 1922.

Questions about lahar

What does lahar mean?
Lahar means a volcanic mudflow.
What is lahar in Malay?
Lahar in Malay is lahar. See Lahar meaning in Malay.
How do you use lahar in a sentence?
Pyroclastic flows are often difficult to distinguish in outcrops from a similar type of fragmental debris flow known as lahars.
What part of speech is lahar?
Lahar is a noun.
How do you pronounce lahar?
Lahar is pronounced /ˈlɑhɑɹ/.
What is the plural of lahar?
The plural of lahar is lahars.

Words near lahar in the dictionary

  1. Lahaina Noons
  2. lahal
  3. Lahamu
  4. Lahan
  5. Lahans
  6. lahar
  7. lahara
  8. laharas
  9. Lahari Bandar
  10. lahars
  11. Laharum

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lahar (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)-Vealhurl-lahar.wav.

Cite this entry: “lahar.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lahar. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.