alluvium
Americannoun
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alluviums,
plural
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alluvia
plural
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a deposit of sand, mud, etc., formed by flowing water.
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the sedimentary matter deposited thus within recent times, especially in the valleys of large rivers.
noun
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alluviums
plural
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of alluvium
1655–65; < Latin, noun use of neuter of alluvius washed against, equivalent to alluv- ( see alluvion) + -ius, -ium adj. suffix; see -ium
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Deposits of alluvium and volcanic ash have made desirable soil that is among the top 2% in the world.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 16, 2023
Paved surfaces end miles from the rock outcrop, so we drive on overgrown rutted two-tracks that cross the loose sandy dune fields that show up on our geologic maps as “QAL”—Quaternary alluvium.
From Scientific American ● Dec. 15, 2020
Thus, a landscape architect I know savors the very smell of the dirt embedded in his botany texts; it is the alluvium of his life’s work.
From Slate ● Feb. 4, 2020
The island’s geology — a heart of granite in the west, compacted alluvium in the east — is such that most of it could be hollowed out.
From New York Times ● Apr. 20, 2017
That man was among the very last of the animals created is made certain by the fact that his remains are found only in the highest part of alluvium.
From The Religion of Geology and Its Connected Sciences by Edward Hitchcock
They are probably contemporary with the older alluvia.
From The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia Volume 1 of 28 by Project Gutenberg
Near Orange, for instance, her favourite spots are the alluvia of the Aygues, with their carpets of smooth pebbles no longer visited by the waters.
From The Mason-Bees by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
S., good sections of these old brecciated alluvia occur.
From Early Days in North Queensland by Edward Palmer
I start with two Mason-bees of the Walls working at their nests on the pebbles in the alluvia of the Aygues, not far from Serignan.
From The Mason-Bees by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
These subterranean vaults are usually filled in part with mud, pebbles, and breccia, in which bones occur belonging to the same assemblage of animals as those characterising the Post-pliocene alluvia above described.
From The Student's Elements of Geology by Sir Charles Lyell
There are great tracts of alluviums lying along the banks of the Derwent, the Ouse, and the Trent, and the Romney Marsh of Kent along the banks of the Thames.
From The New Gresham Encyclopedia. Vol. 1 Part 1 A to Amide by Various
He pointed out with great clearness the resemblance of the tufaceous matter in the vaults and cellars at Herculaneum and Pompeii to aqueous alluviums, and its distinctness from ejections which had fallen through the air.
From Principles of Geology or, The Modern Changes of the Earth and its Inhabitants Considered as Illustrative of Geology by Sir Charles Lyell
The whole of them were at first confounded with the superficial alluviums of Europe; and it was long before their real extent and thickness, and the various ages to which they belong, were fully recognised.
From The Student's Elements of Geology by Sir Charles Lyell
Herculaneum was situated several miles nearer to the volcano, and has, therefore, been always more exposed to be covered, not only by showers of ashes, but by alluviums and streams of lava.
From Principles of Geology or, The Modern Changes of the Earth and its Inhabitants Considered as Illustrative of Geology by Sir Charles Lyell
In the course of ages, a new system of valleys was excavated, so that the rivers ran at lower levels than those at which the first alluviums and sheets of lava were formed.
From The Student's Elements of Geology by Sir Charles Lyell
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
