lough (n) 1 : chiefly Irish: Lake. 2: chiefly Irish: a bay or inlet of the sea.
"The cottage sat at the edge of the lough. She could hear the wind and rain whipping across the expanse of open water: it hit the trees and muscled its way into the grass." (p. 3)
bollard (n) 1. a post of metal or wood on a wharf around which to fasten mooring lines. 2: chiefly British: any of a series of short posts set at intervals to delimit an area (as a traffic island) or to exclude vehicular traffic. "The rope tightened hard against the bollard. The water slapped against Kingstown Pier." (p. 40)
Words are from TransAtlantic by Colum McCann. Definitions are from Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.
I thought I'd heard bollard before but I think I have it confused with bollocks. I'm going to see if I can figure out how to pronounce lough. Thanks for playing along!
ReplyDeleteI think I've run across both of those in my Irish and British reading. Good words!
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I knew bollard because I'm an obsessive Anglophile and when I heard it on an episode of Rumpole of the Bailey, I had to look it up. Lough--I'd never heard this variation of Gaelic words for "lake." I'm more accustomed to the Scottish "loch," as I know more about Scotland than Ireland on average.
ReplyDeleteGreat words. When I saw lough, I thought of loch as in Loch Ness monster? Both words mean lake. Loch is Scottish, I think.
ReplyDeleteI thought the same Judy. I imagine that lough is pronounced with a hard 'gh' that sounds like 'ck'.
DeleteBollard is quite a common word I think, we use it here for those stumps in the road used for crossing places. I have come across lough but not really known its meaning.
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