saumache

French

Alternative forms

  • saumalt
  • saumate
  • somache

Etymology

From Middle French saumace, ultimately from Latin salmacidus, doublet of saumâtre.

Adjective

saumache (plural saumaches)

  1. (only said of water, dialectal, mostly Genevan and sailor cant, obsolete) brackish, resembling, approaching the taste of salt water
    • 1767, Voltaire, “XXI.ix.49-52”, in La Défense de mon oncle [1]:
      Les nez coupés purent se procurer à force de soins de quelques eaux de citernes, ou se servir de quelques puits qui fournissaient de l'eau saumache et mal-saine, laquelle donne communément une espèce de scorbut et de lèpre".
      (please add an English translation of this quotation)
    • 1772, Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, chapter 9, in Voyage autour du monde, volume 1:
      Deux petites rivières se déchargent dans la baie, l'eau est saumache à leur embouchure, mais à cinq cents pas au dessus elle est très bonne. […]
      Two small rivers empty in the bay, the water is brackish at their mouth but perfectly fine some five hundred paces uphill.  […]

See also

  • samaciu (Provençal)
  • saumacre (Normandy)

Noun

saumache f (plural saumaches)

  1. (dialectal, mostly Genevan and sailor cant, obsolete) brackish water

Further reading

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