A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1367 entries
firth
A firth is a broad inlet of the sea on the Scottish coast, usually the drowned mouth of a river and often wide enough that the far shore is a low line on the horizon. The Firth of Forth, the Firth of Clyde, the Moray Firth, and the Solway Firth are the large ones. A firth is generally broader and shallower than a fjord, with low or moderate shores rather than walls.
Etymology
The word is the Scottish form of the same Old Norse word that gives English fjord, which arrived in Scotland with Norse settlement and came out with the sounds rearranged. So firth and fjord are the same word taken into English twice by different routes and at different times, and they now name two different things. Norse also left voe in Shetland and Orkney for a smaller inlet.
Notes