Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A swamp in an upland coastal region.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun See the quotation.
- noun A tract of low land; a swamp; a marsh.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun US A low,
wooded swamp in (especially coastal) EasternMaryland orVirginia ; apalustrine wetland with deep, acidic peat soils.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The word pocosin comes from the Algonquin Native American word for "swamp on a hill".
Pocosins 2008
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The only meaning which I can attach to the word pocosin is, that it is a large swamp.
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McPherson, in his report, says that the region inhabited by the Croatans is a low woodland, swampy region, locally known as pocosin land, abounding in whortleberries and black berries, which bring some revenue to the people.
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THE SHALLOW WATERS of eastern North Carolina's remote pocosin wetlands warm up as fast as the spring fishing action for panfish and largemouth bass.
Catch North Carolina Panfish on Poppers from a Float Tube 2007
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Wild or unimproved lands are reported in three general classes: first, lands exhausted, abandoned, and grown up to bushes; second, virgin uplands, generally well timbered; and third, low or swamp lands, pocosin, often well timbered.
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Page 103 and a few other counties; in the latter one body of "white oak pocosin," of sixty thousand acres, extending into several adjacent counties, and other tracts nearly as large, requiring combined capital to drain.
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The earthy matter in the pocosin of Onslow is very fine, and of drab color, in which respects it is similar to the best lands of Hyde.
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* This pocosin is partly in Onslow and partly in Jones county.
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It is surprising that swamp lands hold so much water -- so that most of the largest tracts of pocosin lands furnish a sufficiency for this purpose.
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Thus the drained portion of Mr. Francke's pocosin gave me a result on analysis equal in value to the best of the Hyde county soils.
reesetee commented on the word pocosin
(used mainly in the southeastern U.S.) A swamp in an upland coastal region. Also regionally called dismal.
April 30, 2007
trivet commented on the word pocosin
wetlands have the best names!
April 30, 2007
reesetee commented on the word pocosin
Oooh--you just gave me an idea for another list! Thanks, trivet!
April 30, 2007
jennarenn commented on the word pocosin
This comment thread took me forever to unravel. There's a city of Poquoson in Virginia with the same pronunciation, and it's located in the same region as the Great Dismal Swamp.
April 30, 2007
reesetee commented on the word pocosin
Yes, you're right--and I hadn't even thought of that when I listed this word! No wonder it was confusing.
I've always suspected that the Great Dismal Swamp was redundantly named....
April 30, 2007
chained_bear commented on the word pocosin
"In coastal Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and the Carolinas, a swamp or marsh can be called a pocosin or a dismal, the second term illustrated in the name of the Dismal Swamp on the border of North Carolina and Virginia. The word pocosin, pronounced po-KO-sin but also occasionally PO-ko-sin--c_b note: I've never in my life heard that pronunciation is probably a borrowing from Virginia Algonquian, the extinct Algonquian language of eastern Virginia. The early settlers used pocosin as a designation for low swampy ground, especially a wooded swamp."
—More Word Histories and Mysteries, from the editors of American Heritage Dictionaries, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006
Jennarenn's right--there's a city in eastern Virginia called Poquoson, that's pronounced just like this word, and it's very low-lying indeed, though it's an incorporated city. During Isabel a couple years ago, Poquoson was one of the hardest-hit areas on the peninsula (naturally, because it's so low-lying).
August 30, 2008