Marshes

How to spell marshes

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce marshes

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does marshes mean?

1. nounAreas of low, soft, waterlogged land, often flooded and rich in reeds and wildlife.

Marshes in a sentence

• The coastal marshes flood every spring when the tides rise.

• Birdwatchers gather at the marshes to photograph the wading herons.

Where does marshes come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the plural of 'marsh', which descends from the Old English word mersc or merisc, meaning a tract of low, wet, soft land. That Anglo-Saxon term is related to 'mere', an old word for a lake or pool, and ultimately to the Latin mare, meaning 'sea', reflecting the shared idea of standing water. The word has cousins across the Germanic languages, including the Dutch 'meers' and German 'Marsch', all describing waterlogged ground. The spelling has stayed remarkably close to its Old English root for over a thousand years, with the plural simply adding -es after the -sh ending, exactly as English does with 'bushes' or 'dishes'. The doubling of that hissing sound is why the plural needs the extra e, a small but reliable rule worth remembering.

How the word is built

• marsh (from Old English mersc: wetland)
• -es (plural suffix)