Avulsion, Bache, Backwater, Basin: Origins, Forms, Histories of Words Meaning River, Lake

The natural features of a region are its topography (Greek topos, "place").

One important kind of topographic feature is freshwater bodies, such as rivers and lakes. Many words relating to freshwater features have little-known meanings and/or colorful etymologies.

In the current alphabetic series of such terms, here are the origins, forms, and histories of avulsion, bache, backwater, and basin. The dates of forms and meanings come from the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.

Avulsion
Avulsion entered English in the 17th century from Latin avulsion-, a combining form of avulsio, from avulsus, the past participle of avellere ("to tear off"), from ab- ("from, away") and vellere ("to pluck, pull, separate").

The original meaning of avulsion is any forcible separation or detachment (17th century).

A sudden cutting off of land by a flood or by a change in the course of a river is an avulsion (1864). The term is often used in legal contexts when the process involves separating land from one person's property and joining it to another's.

Bache
Modern English bache comes from Middle English bache (13th century), from Old English baece and bece (both before 12th century). The word is akin to Old High German bah ("brook") and Middle Irish bual ("flowing water"). A variant form of bache is batch (19th century).

Bache is now a dialectal word in England for the valley of a small stream. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the original meaning of the word was probably a stream, but the sense was transferred to the valley carved out of the stream (recorded with this meaning since before 1000).

Backwater
The original, now obsolete, meaning of backwater is water flowing from behind (14th century).

The principal modern senses of backwater are water backed up in its course by an obstruction, an opposing current, or the tide (17th century); and a body of water, such as a tributary, that is out of the main current of a larger body, such as a river (19th century).

Basin
Modern English basin comes from Middle English basin (15th century) and bacin (13th century), from Old French bacin, from Late Latin bacchinon.

The original meaning of basin is any hollow circular vessel (13th century). More specifically, such a receptacle, natural or artificial, containing water is a basin (1712).

From that sense come the following extended meanings of basin, pertaining to the water itself: a water area enclosed or partly enclosed by land, especially a little bay (1725); the entire area of land drained by a river and its tributaries (1830); and a part of a river widened and provided with wharves (1837).
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Encyclopaedia Britannica Ready Reference 2004. CD-ROM. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2004.

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 2006.

Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary. 3rd ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 2007.

The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1989.