lake

Pronunciation: /leɪk/

Reading level: medium

Estimated CEFR level: A2 — Elementary

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun a body of (usually fresh) water surrounded by land
  2. noun a purplish red pigment prepared from lac or cochineal
  3. noun any of numerous bright translucent organic pigments

Etymology

Arose from a conflation of * Middle English lake (“small stream of running water, pool, lake”), from Old English lacu (“stream, pool, pond, lake”), from Proto-West Germanic *laku, from Proto-Germanic *lakō (“stream, pool, body of water", originally "a place where water runs off and collects”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *leg- (“to leak, drain”); with * Middle English lac (“lake”), from Old French lac (“lake, ditch, pit”), a borrowed term, likely from Latin lacus (“lake, tub, vat”) (see Old French lac for more). The first element is related to Dutch laak (“stream, drainage ditch, pond”), German Low German Lake, Laak (“drainage, marshland”), German Lache (“puddle, pool”), Norwegian løk (“a deep, slow-moving stream; a widening in a stream or river”), Faroese løkur (“small brook”) and lækja (“water hole, well, watershoot in a brook”), Icelandic lækur (“stream”). Despite their similarity in form and meaning, Old English lacu is not related to English lay (“lake”), Latin lacus (“hollow, lake, pond”), Scottish Gaelic loch (“lake”), Ancient Greek λάκκος (lákkos, “waterhole, tank, pond, pit”), all from Proto-Indo-European *lókus, *l̥kwés (“lake, pool”).

In classic literature

Semantic network

Broader (hypernyms)
body of water
Narrower (hyponyms)
reservoir, lough, loch, lagoon, oxbow lake, tarn

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