Keld, Kill, Lade, Lagoon: Origins, Forms, Histories of Words Meaning River, Lake

The natural features of a region are its topography (Greek topos, "place"). Rivers, lakes, and other freshwater bodies are important examples of topographic features.

In the current alphabetic series of words that name such freshwater features, here are the origins, forms, and histories of keld, kill, lade, and lagoon. The dates of forms and meanings come from the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.

Keld
Keld is probably of Scandinavian origin. It is akin to Old Norse kelda ("spring, marshy place"), which probably comes from kaldr ("cold").

Keld is a dialectal word in northern England with several meanings: a well, a spring, a fountain, or a deep, still part of a body of water (1697).

Kill
The water-related word kill comes from Dutch kil, from Middle Dutch kille. The word is akin to Old Norse kill ("small bay").

Kill is a local name for a creek, river, or stream in Delaware, New York, and Pennsylvania, areas where many Dutch speakers settled. The word is used mostly in place-names, such as the Schuylkill River in Pennsylvania.

Lade
Modern English lade comes from Middle English lade (13th century), from Old English lad (before 12th century). The word is akin to Old Norse leith ("way, course") and Old English lithan ("to go").

During the Old English and Middle English periods, the word referred to a way, a course, or a road.

Since the 17th century, lade has denoted a watercourse or the mouth of a river. In Scotland the word refers more specifically to a channel leading water to and from a mill wheel, or to the current that drives the wheel (19th century).

Lagoon
Lagoon entered English in the 17th century from French lagune and Italian laguna, both from Latin lacuna ("pit, pool"), from lucus ("lake"). The French and Italian spellings were used in English-language contexts for an extended period, from the 17th to the 19th centuries. The form lagoon itself has been recorded since at least the 18th century.

The original meaning of lagoon is a shallow sound, channel, pond, or other body of water near to, or communicating with, a sea (17th century). Such a lagoon usually has some access to a sea but is largely separated from it by sandbars, barrier islands, or coral reefs.

Coastal lagoons make up about 13 percent of the world's coastlines. Their water may include some freshwater input, but generally the water is salty or brackish. In warm regions, evaporation may result in thick salt deposits. The most striking lagoons, some more than 30 miles across, are in the Pacific atolls.

The original, saltwater meaning of lagoon has been extended to include any shallow freshwater pond or lake usually near to, or communicating with, a larger lake or a river.
_____________________________

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.