Sunday Word: Saltings

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

saltings [sawlt-ings]

noun:
(British English) areas of low ground regularly inundated with salt water, often taken to include their halophyte vegetation; salt marshes

Examples:

I trail after them, noting as I go four egrets feeding across the saltings, wondering if they now share the heronry in the lee of Harlech Castle. (Jim Perrin, Red legs flash over the green strand, The Guardian, September 2017)

With a tidal range of up to five metres, millions of litres of water flood and ebb through its narrow entrance twice a day, creating massive areas of food-rich channels, mudflats and saltings for thousands of birds, fish and an increasing number of seals. (Elaine Hammond, High Sheriff of West Sussex explores Chichester Harbour and find out why it is so special, Chichester Observer, August 2020)

The village of Northton on the south of the island provides access to some of the most interestingly formed saltings in the Hebrides. The low-lying grasslands are frequently submerged at high tide and have been shaped into an incredible group of small islands partitioned by a network of gracefully meandering channels. (Jeremy Flint, 10 of the Most Epic Places to Visit in Northern Scotland, Fodors, July 2021)

        
(Stoke Saltings, Kent's Hoo Peninsula UK, click to enlarge)
Origin:

Derived from salt, from Old English sealtan, from Proto-Germanic salto- (Online Etymology Dictionary)