fjord

Unadapted borrowing from Norwegian fjord, from Old Norse fjǫrðr, from Proto-Germanic *ferþu, *ferþuz (“inlet, fjord”),^[1] from Proto-Indo-European *pértus (“crossing”), from *per- (“to carry forth”) + *-tus (suffix forming action nouns from verb roots). Doublet of firth, ford, port, and fjard.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfiːɔːd/, /fiˈɔːd/, /fjɔːd/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /fiˈɔɹd/, /fjɔɹd/

• Audio (US):

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• Audio (General Australian):

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• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)d
• Hyphenation: fjord

fjord (plural fjords)

1. A long, narrow, deep inlet between cliffs.
   • 1839, T. D. W[hatley], “Section II. Norway.”, in A Hand-book for Travellers in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Russia, being a Guide to the Principal Routes in Those Countries, […], London: John Murray, […]; Leipzig: Black and Armstrong, →OCLC, page 73:

     About 20 English miles beyond this river, which is the largest in Norway, the road crosses the fjord which forms the boundary of the two kingdoms [Norway and Sweden]; and whose waters but too often in former days were dyed with the life-blood of many a bold mountaineer who crossed the "border stream" never to return.

   • 1841, Harriet Martineau, “The Water Sprites’ Doings.”, in Feats on the Fiord. A Tale (The Playfellow; a Series of Tales to be Published Quarterly; 3), London: Charles Knight & Co., […], →OCLC, pages 123–124:

     At last one gave a deep groan, and another declared that the spirits of the fiord were against them, and there was no doubt that their boat was now lying twenty fathoms deep, at the bottom of the creek; drawn down by the strong hand of an angry water-spirit. [...] Another said he would not go till he had looked abroad over the fiord, for some chance of seeing the boat.

   • 1894 August, Spitzbergen and Norway in August 1894: Itinerary of the Pleasure Cruise of the “S.S. Lusitania.” From 1st August to 2nd September (33 Days), London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company, Limited […], →OCLC, page 46:

     Like most of the larger inlets, and some of the inland lakes, the Sogne fjord is much deeper than the sea beyond, the depth in places being upwards of 4,000 feet, [...] Before the "glacial epoch," thousands of streams commenced the work of erosion and produced valleys and gorges. During the glacial epoch these channels were enlarged, and lake basins were hollowed out. The descending glaciers ground out fjords to their full length when the glacial epoch was at its height, but as it declined they ground out the inner parts to a still greater depth, producing the present character of the marine fjords, and giving rise to lake hollows in other places.

   • 1909, Ralph S[tockman] Tarr, “General Physiography”, in The Yakutat Bay Region, Alaska (United States Geographical Survey, Department of the Interior, Professional Paper; 64), Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, →OCLC, part I (Physiography and Glacial Geology), page 15:

     Disenchantment Bay, as the Yakutat Bay inlet is called north of Point Latouche, is bordered on the east by the steep hills of the peninsula and on the west by the main mountain front. Its coast is precipitous and through nearly its entire length it is a true mountain-walled fiord. The two mountain walls approach each other at Point Latouche almost at right angles, and Disenchantment Bay enters between them with a nearly north-south axis.

   • 1951, Richard A. Hebert, “Hancock County”, in Modern Maine: Its Historic Background, People and Resources, volume II, New York, N.Y.: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, part III (A County by County Descriptive Outline of City, Town and Country in Maine), page 281:

     In the center of Mount Desert Island is deep Somes Sound, almost bisecting the island and forming the only natural fjord on the entire Atlantic Coast of North America.

   • 1973 December, “Description of the Environment”, in Proposed Harding Icefield–Kenai Fjords National Monument, Alaska: Draft Environmental Impact Statement DES 73-86, [Washington, D.C.: Alaska Planning Group, National Park Service, Department of the Interior], →OCLC, section II.A.1 (Physical Environment), page 51:

     The warm Alaska Current raises the water temperature off the coast of the monument to approximately 55°F. in the summer, while winter temperatures range from 37.5° to 40°F. Temperatures in individual fjords vary due to tidewater glaciers and fresh water flowing into the fjords [...].

   • 2010, M. E. Inall, P. A. Gillibrand, “The Physics of Mid-latitude Fjords: A Review”, in J. A. Howe, W. E. N. Austin, M. Forwick, M. Paetzel, editors, Fjord Systems and Archives (Geographical Society Special Publication; no. 344), London: The Geological Society, →ISBN, page 17:

     Why should the flow of water within a fjord be of interest to the geologist? After all, fjordic geomorphology has changed little over the last few thousand years. One reason is that attention has recently focused on fjords as archives of Holocene climate change.

   • 2019, J. N. Moum, W. D. Smyth, “Upper Ocean Mixing”, in J. Kirk Cochran, Henry J. Bokuniewicz, Patricia L. Yager, editors, Encyclopedia of Ocean Sciences, volume I (Marine Biogeochemistry), London, San Diego, Calif.: Academic Press, →ISBN, page 75:

     Fiords are glacially carved oceanic intrusions into land. They are often deep and narrow with a sill in the mouth. Waters from neighboring seas and locally supplied fresh water fill up the fiords, often leading to strong stratification. Fiords with tidewater glaciers also contain glacial ice. During transport into and stay in the fiord, mixing processes modify the properties of imported water masses.

• fiord (now chiefly New Zealand)

• fjard

• → Japanese: フィヨルド (fiyorudo)

Borrowed from Old Norse fjǫrðr.

• IPA^(key): [ˈfjort]

fjord m inan

1. fjord

From Old Danish fiorth, from Old Norse fjǫrðr (“firth, fjord”), from Proto-Germanic *ferþuz (“inlet, fjord”), from Proto-Indo-European *pértus (“crossing”).

• IPA^(key): [ˈfjoɐ̯ˀ]
• Rhymes: -oːɐ̯
• Homophone: fjor

fjord c (singular definite fjorden, plural indefinite fjorde)

1. firth, fjord, inlet

Borrowing from Norwegian fjord, from Old Norse fjǫrðr.

• IPA^(key): /fjɔrt/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: fjord
• Rhymes: -ɔrt

fjord m (plural fjorden, diminutive fjordje n)

1. fjord
2. Fjord horse

   Synonym: fjordenpaard

• voord

• fiord

Borrowed from Norwegian fjord, from Old Norse fjǫrðr. Doublet of port.

• IPA^(key): /fjɔʁd/, /fjɔʁ/

• Audio (Paris):

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• (Quebec) IPA^(key): /fjɔʁ/, /fjɔː(ʁ)/

fjord m (plural fjords)

1. fjord

• → Romanian: fiord
• → Turkish: fiyort
• → Vietnamese: phi-oóc

• “fjord”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• IPA^(key): [ˈfjord]

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: fjord
• Rhymes: -ord

fjord (plural fjordok)

1. fjord (a long, narrow, deep inlet between cliffs)

• Bakos, Ferenc and Pál Fábián. Idegen szavak és kifejezések szótára (’A Dictionary of Foreign Words and Phrases’). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1989. →ISBN

• fjord in Bárczi, Géza and László Országh. A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára (“The Explanatory Dictionary of the Hungarian Language”, abbr.: ÉrtSz.). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962. Fifth ed., 1992: →ISBN

From Old Norse fjǫrðr, from Proto-Germanic *ferþuz (“inlet, fjord”), from Proto-Indo-European *pértus (“crossing”).

• IPA^(key): /fjuːr/, [fjuːɾ]

• Audio:

  (file)

fjord m (definite singular fjorden, indefinite plural fjorder, definite plural fjordene)

1. a fjord

Incorporated into the names of fjords as -fjorden.

“fjord” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

From Old Norse fjǫrðr, from Proto-Germanic *ferþuz (“inlet, fjord”), from Proto-Indo-European *pértus (“crossing”). Akin to English firth.

• IPA^(key): /fjuːr/
• (thick L) IPA^(key): /fjuːɽ/
• (Sunnmøre) IPA^(key): [fjo̞ːɾˠ]

fjord m (definite singular fjorden, indefinite plural fjordar, definite plural fjordane)

1. a fjord
2. a big long lake in Eastern Norway (e.g. Tyrifjorden, Tunhovdfjorden, Randsfjorden, Tisleifjorden)

Incorporated into the names of fjords and lakes as -fjorden.

“fjord” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

From Norwegian fjord, from Old Norse fjǫrðr.

• IPA^(key): /fjôrd/

fjȍrd m (Cyrillic spelling фјо̏рд)

1. fjord

• “fjord”, in Hrvatski jezični portal [Croatian language portal] (in Serbo-Croatian), 2006–2024

Borrowed from Norwegian fjord.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfjɔrt/

fjord m inan (genitive singular fjordu, nominative plural fjordy, genitive plural fjordov, declension pattern of dub)

1. fjord

• “fjord”, in Slovníkový portál Jazykovedného ústavu Ľ. Štúra SAV [Dictionary portal of the Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics, Slovak Academy of Science] (in Slovak), https://slovnik.juls.savba.sk, 2024

From Old Swedish fiordher, from Old Norse fjǫrðr, from Proto-Norse *ᚠᛖᚱᚦᚢᛉ (*ferþuʀ), from Proto-Germanic *ferþuz (“inlet, fjord”), from Proto-Indo-European *pértus (“crossing”). Doublet of fjärd.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfjuːrd/, [ˈfjuːɖ], /ˈfjoːrd/, [ˈfjoːɖ]

fjord c

1. (geography) a fjord

• fjärd

• vik

• fjord in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• fjord in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• fjord in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)
• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “fjord”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.