outwash

noun

out·​wash ˈau̇t-ˌwȯsh 

-ˌwäsh

: detritus consisting chiefly of gravel and sand carried by running water from the melting ice of a glacier and laid down in stratified deposits

Examples of outwash in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Don’t pass on the excursions to visit glacial outwash plains laced with braided streams and speckled with stones ground smooth by ice, wind, and water. —Uncruise Adventures, AFAR Media, 25 Mar. 2025

Half of Brooklyn is on an outwash plain—Prospect Park to Coney Island. —John McPhee, The New Yorker, 13 Jan. 2025

In Switzerland, there are outwash plains from valley glaciers as well as from sheet ice. —John McPhee, The New Yorker, 13 Jan. 2025

This latest study exploits the remarkable preservation of the body tissues of Mazon Creek fossils—thanks to rapid burial in a silty outwash with a unique chemistry that essentially entombed the remains of dead creatures in a crust of siderite and slowed decay. —Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 25 Apr. 2023

South of the rocky central spine of the island, the fine white sand of the glacial outwash spills into the Atlantic, creating beaches that, over the past century and a half, have drawn wealthy New Yorkers eastward in droves. —Jay McInerney, Travel + Leisure, 30 July 2023

Proposed in 1990 by the late oceanographer John Martin, the hypothesis suggests that flurries of dust — swept from cold, dry landscapes like the glacial outwash where Kaplan now stood, trowel in hand — played a crucial role in the last major ice age. —Emily Underwood, Smithsonian Magazine, 3 Jan. 2020

In the image above, glacial flour discolors Scoresby Sound where the outwash plain reaches the water. —Tom Yulsman, Discover Magazine, 17 Oct. 2018

The carnage took place along the flood-prone outwash plain on the south and east shores of the island, located at the crest of the New York Bight, where geography funneled the ocean’s angry waters. —Ted Steinberg, Discover Magazine, 25 Apr. 2014

Word History

First Known Use

1805, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for outwash

• backwash
• downwash
• mouthwash
• panache
• whitewash
• bosh
• frosh
• gosh
• josh
• posh
• quash
• slosh