Logh

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A body of freshwater enclosed by land, a term used mainly in Scotland and Ireland for what English calls a lake
2. An inland lake or sea inlet, the name given in Scottish and Irish usage to a sheet of standing water
3. The Gaelic-derived word for a lake, found in place names and everyday speech across Scotland and Ireland

Etymology: "Logh" is a variant spelling of "lough," the Irish English word for a lake. It comes from Irish "loch," which has meant a lake, or a sea inlet, since Old Irish. English speakers in Ireland adopted the word for the island's many lakes, and it survives in names such as Lough Neagh, the largest lake in the British Isles, and Lough Derg. The Scottish "loch" and the Irish "lough" come from the same Gaelic source, so the two countries share a single word for a body of water. The "gh" in these spellings was once pronounced as a throaty sound, which English speakers later stopped voicing, leaving the spelling as the main trace of its Gaelic origin.