Badwater

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Water containing high levels of salt, minerals, or other dissolved substances that make it unfit for human consumption
2. Water too saline or mineralized to be potable or safe for ordinary domestic use
3. Water rendered undrinkable by excessive salt content or mineral concentration

Etymology: Badwater is a transparent compound of "bad" and "water," and its sense is literal: water that is unfit to drink, usually because it is salty, alkaline, or mineral-laden. "Water" comes from Old English "wæter," while "bad" first appears in Middle English in the 1300s, and its ultimate origin is uncertain. The name is best known as Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America, at about 282 feet (86 metres) below sea level in California's Death Valley. Its spring is so briny that it cannot be drunk. Accounts of how the basin got its name vary, and the popular story about a mule's water going bad is not reliably documented, so the simple descriptive sense is the safest explanation.