ALLUVIUM

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

Irregular inflected form: alluvia

Meaning:

Clay or silt or gravel carried by rushing streams and deposited where the stream slows down

Synonyms:

alluvial deposit; alluvial sediment; alluvion; alluvium

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Hypernyms ("alluvium" is a kind of...):

deposit; sediment (matter that has been deposited by some natural process)

Meronyms (substance of "alluvium"):

alluvial soil (a fine-grained fertile soil deposited by water flowing over flood plains or in river beds)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "alluvium"):

delta (a low triangular area of alluvial deposits where a river divides before entering a larger body of water)

placer (an alluvial deposit that contains particles of some valuable mineral)

Derivation:

alluvial (of or relating to alluvium)