What does brackish mean?
Word: Brackish
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: Brackish means slightly salty, and so unpleasant to drink.
How do you spell brackish?
Syllables: brack - ish
Tricky part: The k sound after the a needs both c and k. Pupils often keep just one and write brakish.
Watch out for: brakish, bracish
Memory tip: One sip and you pull your head back: brackish keeps the ck of back.
Brackish in a sentence
Example 1: The boatman warned us that the water in the creek was brackish.
Example 2: Prawn farmers along the coast often fill their ponds with brackish water.
Example 3: Our well turned brackish after the long dry summer.
Fun Fact
Chilika Lake in Odisha is the largest brackish lagoon in India. The word itself grew from an old word brack, meaning salty, borrowed from Dutch and Low German.
Practise the CREST Way
Word Cookie
Insert the correct pair of letters to form a word:
br_ck_sh
a) u, i
b) a, e
c) o, i
d) a, i
Show answer
d) a, i. The first vowel is the short one in bat, and the common ending follows.
Mingle-Mangle
Unjumble the word in the sentence and choose it:
Mangroves thrive in the skarchib creeks of the Sundarbans in West Bengal.
a) blackish
b) bracing
c) brutish
d) brackish
Show answer
d) brackish. The jumble has an r, a k and an s, and no l, t or g, which leaves one word.
Word Connection
Choose the antonym of the word brackish as used in the sentence:
Villagers near the coast dug a new well because the old one gave brackish water.
a) briny
b) fresh
c) saline
d) stagnant
Show answer
b) fresh. The villagers wanted water without the salt, and that is fresh water.
Spell-o-Spell
Three words in the list are spelt correctly and one is misspelt. Choose the meaning of the misspelt word.
1. tributery 2. brackish 3. lagoon 4. estuary
a) the wide part of a river where it nears the sea
b) a small river that flows into a larger one
c) a lake of sea water cut off by a strip of land
d) a little salty, as water may be near the coast
Show answer
b) a small river that flows into a larger one. Tributary ends in ary, like estuary.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. A farmer tests his well and finds the water brackish. What should he expect?
a) His crops may not grow well on it.
b) His crops will grow twice as fast.
c) It can be sold as mineral water.
d) It will stay very cold in summer.
Show answer
a) His crops may not grow well on it.
2. Why is the water of an estuary often like this?
a) Ice melts into it all through summer.
b) Rain falls there only once a year.
c) Fish keep it moving all day long.
d) River water mixes with sea water there.
Show answer
d) River water mixes with sea water there.
