Berm, Blowhole, Boondock, Bore, Breaker: Word Origins, Descriptions of Coastal Features, Processes

In the current alphabetic series of word origins and physical descriptions of coastal features and processes, here are berm, blowhole, boondock, bore, and breaker.

Berm
English berm comes from French berme, from Dutch berm ("strip of ground along a dike"). The word is akin to Middle English brimme ("brim").

A berm, in general, is a narrow shelf or ledge at the top or bottom of a slope, or, more broadly, any mound or wall of earth.

Specifically on a coast, a berm is a nearly horizontal part of a beach bordered on one side or the other by a ridge of sand or a slope.

Blowhole
As a coastal feature, a blowhole is a hole or a fissure in shoreline rocks through which incoming waves force air or water rapidly upward.

The feature is named after a blowhole on a whale or other cetacean, that is, a nostril in the top of the head, through which the animal breathes, or "blows."

Boondock
The English word boondock comes from bundok ("mountain") in Tagalog, the language of the Tagalog people, of central Luzon, the chief island of the Philippines. The word was introduced to English by American military personnel who were serving in the Philippines in the early 20th century.

In general usage, the word nearly always appears in the plural, boondocks, and refers to rough country filled with dense brush. More broadly, it also means any rural area.

However, in geography, including coastal features, the singular form, boondock, denotes an elevated landform of sand and vegetation. It is typically created by wind action eroding the unvegetated surrounding areas and depositing some of that sand on the vegetated area, which gradually builds up to become a boondock.

Bore
The modern coast-related word bore probably comes from Middle English bore ("wave"), from Old Norse bara ("wave").

A bore is a tidal flood with a high abrupt front that is often dangerous to shipping. It proceeds in one or more waves and occurs in coastal areas where the locations or the shapes of the features tend to produce the phenomenon, including certain rivers (such as the Amazon, in South America) and narrow bays (such as the Bay of Fundy, in Canada).

Over a period of time, tidal bores can have a significant erosive effect on coastlines.

Breaker
On a coast, a breaker is a wave that breaks into foam when it strikes a shore, a sandbank, or a rock or reef near the surface of the water.
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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.