Ria

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A long, deep inlet of the sea often found in coastal areas that resembles a submerged river valley
2. A narrow estuary formed by the gradual flooding of a river valley
3. A submerged river mouth characterized by a mixture of fresh and saltwater that supports diverse ecosystems

Etymology: The Spanish "ría" and its Galician parent "ría" describe a drowned valley where the sea has pushed up into a river's lower course, and English borrowed the term through German, which took it from Spanish. The geographer who gave the word its place in the scientific vocabulary of coastlines was German, and the term stuck because the landforms it names are common along the rugged northwestern coast of Spain and Portugal, where the Atlantic floods old river valleys. The chain of borrowing runs Galician "río" (river) to Galician "ría" (inlet), then into Spanish and onward to German. The Galician "ría" itself ultimately traces back to Latin "rivus," a stream, which is the same root behind English "river" through Old French. So the word for a flooded estuary is, at its deepest level, a relative of the ordinary word for a river.

Synonyms: inlet, estuary, bay, firth, cove

Antonyms: mountain, hill