Fairway, Feeder Beach, Feeder Current, Fetch, Fjord: 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 fairway, feeder beach, feeder current, fetch, fetch length, and fjord.

Fairway
The noun fairway comes from the adjective fair, from Middle English fager, from Old English faeger. The word is akin to Old High German fagar ("beautiful") and Old Norse fagr ("beautiful").

The original meaning of the adjective fair is pleasing to the eye. Extended to ocean-related usage, it means favorable to a ship's course.

Fairway is a combination of that adjective fair and the noun way meaning a passage or route. On a coast, a fairway is a navigable part of a bay or harbor, a part of a channel or any waterway kept open and unobstructed, or, more specifically, a stretch of open water near an airport where seaplanes land and take off.

Feeder Beach
One general sense of the word feeder is something that supplies or replenishes another.

A feeder beach is an artificially widened beach whose natural currents or other forces nourish downdrift beaches.

Feeder Current
A feeder current is a current that flows parallel to a shore and converges with other feeder currents to form a rip current.

Fetch
The noun fetch comes from the verb fetch, from Middle English fecchen, from Old English feccan. The word is akin to Old Norse feta ("to step, find one's way") and Old English fot ("foot").

The basic meaning of the verb fetch is to go or come after and bring or take back. The original meaning of the noun fetch is any act of fetching.

Applied to ocean contexts, a fetch is a stretch of open water over which the wind can generate waves (also called generating area).

Fetch Length
A fetch length is a horizontal distance over which the wind generates waves.

Fjord
English fjord comes from Norwegian fjord, from Old Norse fjorthr. The word is akin to Old English ford ("ford") and Old English faran ("to go"). A variant spelling is fiord.

A fjord is a long, narrow inlet of a sea between cliffs or steep slopes. The inlets were created by huge glaciers that dug out deep coastline valleys below sea level. When the glaciers melted, the valleys were inundated by seawater, turning the valleys into fjords.
___________________________

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.