A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1054 entries
floodplain
The flat land adjacent to a river that is periodically inundated when the river overflows its banks — land the river has built and continues to claim. Floodplains are composed of alluvium deposited by centuries of flooding, and they are among the most fertile and most foolishly developed landscapes on earth.
Etymology
Compound of “flood” (Old English “flod,” from Proto-Germanic “*flodus,” related to “flow”) + “plain” (Old French “plain,” from Latin “planus,” flat).