Pohick

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A small waterway in northern Virginia, flowing into the Potomac River and giving its name to a nearby bay and church
2. The name of a creek and inlet in Fairfax County, Virginia, where it drains into the Potomac estuary
3. A tributary stream in northern Virginia, along with the bay and historic church that share its name

Etymology: "Pohick" comes from an Algonquian language of the Virginia tidewater, most likely Powhatan, and it reached English as a place name rather than a common word. Pohick Creek flows into the Potomac River in Fairfax County, and the name later attached to a nearby church, Pohick Church, in Lorton, Virginia, where George Washington served as a vestryman. The exact meaning of the Algonquian original is uncertain. Some older accounts gloss it as a description of the local terrain or water, but the evidence for any one gloss is weak, so a reader should treat it as unknown.