Loch

How to spell loch

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce loch

What does loch mean?

1. nounA lake or a narrow arm of the sea, especially in Scotland.

Loch in a sentence

• The hikers camped beside a still loch in the Highlands.

• A thick mist rose off the loch at dawn.

Where does loch come from?

Language of origin: Celtic

This word comes straight from Scottish Gaelic loch, which simply meant a lake or a sea inlet, and it shares the same Celtic ancestor as the Irish loch and the older Brittonic words behind the Welsh llwch. The root reaches back to a Proto-Celtic term for a body of standing water, and linguists link it to the same ancient family that gave Latin lacus 'lake' and English 'lake' itself. English absorbed loch through contact with the Gaelic-speaking Highlands, and unlike most borrowings it kept its original spelling and its throaty final sound, the velar fricative heard in 'Bach', rather than being smoothed into an English 'k'. That preserved spelling is exactly the trap: the silent-looking 'ch' represents a sound English no longer uses elsewhere, so writers who say it as 'lock' are tempted to spell it that way. A sea loch is a tidal inlet, while a freshwater loch is an inland lake, the most famous being Loch Ness.

How the word is built

• loch (Scottish Gaelic root meaning a lake or a narrow arm of the sea)

Words that sound like loch

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• lock: A mechanical device that secures a door, container, or gate, usually opened with a key or combination.