WORD OF THE DAY: BRACKISH

WORD OF THE DAY: BRACKISH

adjective|BRACK-ish

What It Means

Brackish, meaning “somewhat salty,” usually describes water or bodies of water, such as rivers, lakes, and estuaries. The word can also mean “not appealing to the taste” or “repulsive.”

// The river becomes brackish as we approach the tidemark

Examples of BRACKISH

“The blood-testing organs don’t measure water levels but rather the concentration of salt, whose healthy range lies at almost exactly the same concentration as that of the brackish intertidal water in which vertebrates first evolved (which is about one-third as salty as seawater).” — Dan Samorodnitsky, Wired, 28 Sept. 2025

Did You Know?

When the word brackish first appeared in English in the 1500s, it simply meant “salty,” as did its Dutch parent brac. Then, as now, brackish was used to describe water that was a mixture of saltwater and freshwater, such as one encounters where a river meets the sea. Since that time, however, brackish has developed the additional meanings of “unpalatable” and “repulsive,” presumably because of the oozy, mucky, and sometimes stinky (or stinkyish, if you prefer)—not just salty—qualities of coastal estuaries and swamps.

Merriam Webster Dictionary