Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An area of low-lying land that is usually saturated with water and is dominated by herbaceous rather than woody plants.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A tract of water-soaked or partially overflowed land; wet, miry, or swampy ground; a piece of low ground usually more or less wet by reason of overflow, or scattered pools, but often nearly or wholly dry in certain seasons; a swamp; a fen. Low land subject to overflow by the tides is called salt-marsh or tide-marsh.
  • noun In Australia, a drained meadow. See the extract.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A tract of soft wet land, commonly covered partially or wholly with water; a fen; a swamp; a morass.
  • noun (Bot.) a plant (Nartheeium ossifragum) with linear equitant leaves, and a raceme of small white flowers; -- called also bog asphodel.
  • noun (Bot.) a plant (Potentilla palustris) having purple flowers, and found growing in marshy places; marsh five-finger.
  • noun (Bot.) In the United States, a composite shrub growing in salt marshes (Iva frutescens).
  • noun (Bot.) See Marsh cinquefoil (above).
  • noun (Chem.) See under Gas.
  • noun (Bot.) a genus (Spartina) of coarse grasses growing in marshes; -- called also cord grass. The tall Spartina cynosuroides is not good for hay unless cut very young. The low Spartina juncea is a common component of salt hay.
  • noun (Zoöl.) a European hawk or harrier (Circus æruginosus); -- called also marsh hawk, moor hawk, moor buzzard, puttock.
  • noun (Zoöl.) The marsh harrier.
  • noun (Zoöl.) a rail; esp., Rallus elegans of fresh-water marshes, and Rallus longirostris of salt-water marshes.
  • noun (Bot.) a plant of the genus Althæa ( Althæa officinalis) common in marshes near the seashore, and whose root is much used in medicine as a demulcent.
  • noun (Bot.) See in the Vocabulary.
  • noun (Bot.) any plant of the umbelliferous genus Hydrocotyle; low herbs with roundish leaves, growing in wet places; -- called also water pennywort.
  • noun (Zoöl.) the meadow lark.
  • noun (Bot.) a plant of the genus Statice (Statice Limonium), common in salt marshes. Its root is powerfully astringent, and is sometimes used in medicine. Called also sea lavender.
  • noun (Bot.) a plant (Salicornia herbacea) found along seacoasts. See Glasswort.
  • noun (Bot.) an American herb (Elodes Virginica) with small opposite leaves and flesh-colored flowers.
  • noun (Bot.) Same as Labrador tea.
  • noun (Bot.) Same as Buckbean.
  • noun (Zoöl.) any species of small American wrens of the genus Cistothorus, and allied genera. They chiefly inhabit salt marshes.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An area of low, wet land, often with tall grass.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun low-lying wet land with grassy vegetation; usually is a transition zone between land and water
  • noun United States painter (1898-1954)
  • noun New Zealand writer of detective stories (1899-1982)

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English mersc; see mori- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English mersh, mershe, from Old English merisc, mersc, from Proto-Germanic *mariskaz (cf. West Frisian mersk, Dutch meers ("grassland, meadow"), German Marsch), from *mari ‘mere’. More at mere.

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