Bog, Brake, Carr: Origins, Forms, Histories of Words Meaning Marsh, Swamp

The natural features of a region are its topography (from Greek topos ("place"). Marshes, swamps, and related wetlands are important examples of topographic features.

In the current alphabetic series of words that refer to such places, here are the origins, forms, and histories of bog, brake, and carr. The dates of forms and meanings come from the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.

Bog
Modern English bog (16th century) comes from Scottish bog (14th century), from Scottish Gaelic and Irish bog- (as used, for example, in bogluachair, "bulrushes"), from bog ("marshy," literally "soft"), from Middle Irish bocc ("soft"). The word is akin to Old English bugan ("to bend").

A bog, in the broadest definition, is any wet spongy ground (c. 1505). In particular, the word applies to a poorly drained acidic area consisting largely of decayed or decaying plant material, often surrounding a body of open water and having a characteristic flora, such as sedges, heaths, and sphagnum.

Bogs are famous for their yielding of what are known as "bog bodies," about 700 variously preserved human remains found over the past 200 years in natural peat bogs, mostly in western Europe. The anaerobic fluid conditions in the bogs preserved the bodies, including the soft tissues and the stomach contents. The bodies range chronologically from c. 8000 B.C.E. to early medieval times.

Brake
The Modern English marsh-related word brake comes from Middle English -brake (as used in such compounds as fernebrake, "fern brake," 15th century), probably from Middle Low German brake ("broken branches, thicket"). The word is akin to Middle Low German breken ("to break") and Old English brecan ("to break").

Rough, broken, or marshy land thickly overgrown, usually with one kind of plant (such as alders), is a brake (1563). A well-known type is the canebrake (1769), a brake characterized by canes, especially the giant cane.

Carr
Modern English carr comes from Middle English ker (15th century) and kerr (14th century), of Scandinavian origin. The word is akin to Old Norse kjarr ("underbrush") and Swedish kärr ("marsh").

Carr has two primary meanings, both used mainly in Great Britain: a bog or marsh, that is, a low land covered wholly or partly with water unless artificially drained (c. 1330); and a boggy copse characterized by a particular plant, especially alders (1440).
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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.