Lagoon

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ləˈɡuːn/

Definitions

1. A shallow body of salt or fresh water separated from a larger body by a barrier of land such as a reef or sandbank
2. A coastal water body that is partially enclosed by a barrier island or coral reef and contains a mixture of salt and freshwater
3. A water body, often shallow and saline, that lies behind a protective barrier like a sandbank, creating a unique ecosystem

Etymology: The Latin "lacūna" meant a gap, hollow or pit, and that plain sense of "hollow" is what the modern word carries. Italian turned it into "laguna", a name for the shallow water that fills the gap between a coastline and the sandbars or islands offshore, and that is the image English took on when it borrowed the word through French "lagune". Venice's lagoon is the famous example, but the sense applies to any such stretch of shallow sea. The Latin source also gave English "lacuna", a gap in a manuscript or an argument, and "lacune", a doublet that entered English more directly. So three words from one Latin hollow now name a missing passage, a gap in a text, and a stretch of salt water. The English word itself is a loanword rather than a native one, even though it sits beside the Old English "lagu", meaning water or sea, through a shared distant ancestor in Proto-Indo-European.

Synonyms: bay, inlet, pond

Antonyms: ocean, sea