Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Sediment deposited by flowing water, as in a riverbed, flood plain, or delta.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A deposit, usually of mingled sand and mud, resulting from the action of fluviatile currents: applied by geologists to the most recent sedimentary deposits, especially such as occur in the valleys of large rivers: opposed to diluvium (which see).
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Geol.) Deposits of earth, sand, gravel, and other transported matter, made by rivers, floods, or other causes, upon land not permanently submerged beneath the waters of lakes or seas.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun
soil ,clay ,silt orgravel deposited by flowing water, as it slows, in ariver bed ,delta ,estuary orflood plain
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun clay or silt or gravel carried by rushing streams and deposited where the stream slows down
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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Thus, it does not show the extensive glacial deposits of the North Central and Northeastern States, the deep residuum of the Southeastern and South Central States, the relatively thin alluvium along many major rivers and basins, and extensive eolian deposits on the high plains.
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As the shallow lake spreads under the boughs of the surrounding trees, it deposits a blanket of rich, fertilizing soil called alluvium.
The Field Guide to Wildlife Habitats of the Eastern United States Janine M. Benyus 1989
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As the shallow lake spreads under the boughs of the surrounding trees, it deposits a blanket of rich, fertilizing soil called alluvium.
The Field Guide to Wildlife Habitats of the Eastern United States Janine M. Benyus 1989
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As the shallow lake spreads under the boughs of the surrounding trees, it deposits a blanket of rich, fertilizing soil called alluvium.
The Field Guide to Wildlife Habitats of the Eastern United States Janine M. Benyus 1989
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The native of the alluvium is another being from the native of the great mineral State.
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 11, No. 27, June, 1873 Various
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The Girl's Hall, a great three story building with seven thousand five hundred square feet of ground plan, had been slowly settling into this treacherous alluvium, which is three hundred feet deep to the first sand and gravel, until the building was in danger of falling.
The American Missionary — Volume 43, No. 10, October, 1889 Various
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The soil of the river valleys consists of waste carried down from higher levels, and is known as alluvium; it is the richest soil in the state.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 8: Infamy-Lapparent 1840-1916 1913
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This is a third triangle, containing above a thousand square miles of the richest alluvium, which is liable however to floods and to vast changes in the river beds, whereby often whole fields are swept away.
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Nowhere within the limits of the alluvium was a quarry to be found; and though at no very great distance, on the Arabian border, a coarse sandstone might have been obtained, yet in primitive times, before many canals were made, the difficulty of transporting this weighty substance across the soft and oozy soil of the plain would necessarily have prevented its adoption generally, or, indeed, anywhere, except in the immediate vicinity of the rocky region.
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Except for the occasional ridges of metamorphic rocks mentioned above, and some hills of intruded greenstone, the lower plain is stoneless, its subjacent rocks being covered with a thicker stratum of the same alluvium which is thinly spread over the higher table-land above.
hernesheir commented on the word alluvium
Railroad telegraphers' shorthand for "are willing to agree". --US Railway Association, Standard Cipher Code, 1906.
January 19, 2013