Voe

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A small bay or estuary, especially one that is narrow and sheltered
2. a body of water that is often used for anchoring boats or as a fishing ground
3. a geographic feature characterized by its coastal inlet structure resembling a creek or cove

Etymology: In the Northern Isles of Shetland and Orkney, a "voe" is a narrow sea inlet, the kind of sheltered water where boats ride at anchor. The word did not come into the islands from English or Scots. It survived from Norn, the Norse language spoken there for centuries after the Vikings settled the archipelagos, and it traces back to Old Norse "vágr", meaning "inlet" or "bay". That Old Norse root is shared with modern Scandinavian languages: Swedish and Norwegian "våg" and Faroese "vágur" all carry the same sense. English is a relative too. "Way" is a doublet of "voe", meaning the two words descend from the same ancestor but took different paths. The English word developed from the sense of a route or course, while "voe" stayed fixed to the water itself.

Synonyms: inlet, bay, fjord, cove, harbor

Antonyms: landmass, hill, mountain, plateau, upland