loess

See also: löss and lœss

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:

loess

Wikipedia

Alternative forms

• löss

Etymology

Borrowed from German Löss (“yellowish-gray soil”), from Alemannic German lösch (“loose”). Cognate with German los and English lease.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /lɜːs/, /ˈləʊɪs/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈloʊ.əs/, /lɛs/, /lʌs/
• Rhymes: -ɜːs, -əʊɪs, -oʊəs, -ʌs

Noun

loess (countable and uncountable, plural loesses)

1. (geology) Any sediment, dominated by silt, of eolian (wind-blown) origin.
   • 1987, Amy Shui, Stuart Thompson, “China and its people”, in Chinese Food and Drink‎, Wayland Publishers, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 4, column 2:

     The Yellow River got its name from the massive amount of fertile loess (yellow earth) which it has deposited in the wheat-growing North China Plain.

   • 2022, Thomas Halliday, Otherworlds, Penguin, published 2023, page 3:

     They blast their sand westwards across the steppe, coating the foothills of the Brooks Range in an icing-sugar dust of the loose, windblown sand-silt mixture known as loess.

Derived terms

• Loess Plateau, loessic

Translations

sediment of eolian origin

Belarusian: лёс m (ljos) Bulgarian: льос m (ljos) Chinese: Cantonese: 黃砂／黄砂 (wong4 sa1) Hakka: 黃砂／黄砂 (vong11 sa24) Hokkien: 黃色／黄色 (zh-min-nan) (n̂g-sek), 黃沙／黄沙 (hóng-sê) Mandarin: 黃砂／黄砂 (zh) (huángshā), 黃土／黄土 (zh) (huángtǔ) Wu: 黃砂／黄砂 Czech: spraš (cs) m Danish: løss (da) Dutch: löss (nl), Limburgse klei c Esperanto: leŭso Finnish: lössi (fi) French: lœss (fr) m German: Löss (de) m Hungarian: lösz (hu) Italian: loess m Japanese: 黄土 (ja) (おうど, ōdo), 黄砂 (ja) (こうさ, kōsa) Korean: 황사(黃砂) (ko) (hwangsa) Malay: loes Norwegian: Bokmål: løss m Nynorsk: løss m Persian: بادرفت (fa) Polish: less (pl) m Portuguese: loess (pt) m, loesse (pt) m Russian: лёсс (ru) m (ljoss) Serbo-Croatian: prapor (sh) m Cyrillic: лес m Roman: les (sh) m Slovak: spraš Spanish: loess (es) m Ukrainian: лес m (les) Vietnamese: hoàng thổ (vi)

Further reading

• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “loess”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

Anagrams

• selos, sloes, losse, soles, loses

Portuguese

Alternative forms

• loesse

Pronunciation

 

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈlɔ(j)s/ [ˈlɔ(ɪ̯)s]

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈlɔ(j)s/ [ˈlɔ(ɪ̯)s]
  • (Rio de Janeiro) IPA^(key): /ˈlɔ(j)ʃ/ [ˈlɔ(ɪ̯)ʃ]

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /ˈlɔʃ/

• Hyphenation: loess

Noun

loess m (uncountable)

1. (geology) loess (accumulation of wind-blown sediment)

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French lœss.

Noun

loess n (plural loessuri)

1. loess

Declension

	singular		plural
	indefinite articulation	definite articulation	indefinite articulation	definite articulation
nominative/accusative	(un) loess	loessul	(niște) loessuri	loessurile
genitive/dative	(unui) loess	loessului	(unor) loessuri	loessurilor
vocative	loessule		loessurilor

Declension of loess