loess

See also: löss, lœss, and LOESS

English

Alternative forms

• löss

Etymology

Borrowed from German Löss (“yellowish-gray soil”), from Alemannic German lösch (“loose”). Cognate with German los and English lease.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /lɜːs/, /ˈləʊɪs/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈloʊ.əs/, /lɛs/, /lʌs/
• Rhymes: -ɜːs, -əʊɪs, -oʊəs, -ʌs

Noun

loess (countable and uncountable, plural loesses)

1. (geology) Any sediment, dominated by silt, of eolian (wind-blown) origin.
   • 1987, Amy Shui, Stuart Thompson, “China and its people”, in Chinese Food and Drink‎^[1], Wayland Publishers, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 4, column 2:

     The Yellow River got its name from the massive amount of fertile loess (yellow earth) which it has deposited in the wheat-growing North China Plain.

   • 2022, Thomas Halliday, Otherworlds, Penguin, published 2023, page 3:

     They blast their sand westwards across the steppe, coating the foothills of the Brooks Range in an icing-sugar dust of the loose, windblown sand-silt mixture known as loess.

Derived terms

• loessial, loessal
• loessic
• loessification
• loessland
• Loess Plateau

Translations

sediment of eolian origin

• Belarusian: лёс m (ljos)
• Bulgarian: льос m (ljos)
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 黃砂 / 黄砂 (wong⁴ sa¹)

  Hakka: 黃砂 / 黄砂 (vong¹¹ sa²⁴)

  Hokkien: 黃色 / 黄色 (zh-min-nan) (n̂g-sek), 黃沙 / 黄沙 (hóng-sê)

  Mandarin: 黃砂 / 黄砂 (zh) (huángshā), 黃土 / 黄土 (zh) (huángtǔ)

  Wu: 黃砂 / 黄砂

• Czech: spraš (cs) m
• Danish: løss (da)
• Dutch: löss (nl), Limburgse klei c
• Esperanto: leŭso
• Finnish: lössi (fi)
• French: lœss (fr) m
• German: Löss (de) m
• Hungarian: lösz (hu)
• Italian: loess (it) m
• Japanese: 黄土 (ja) (おうど, ōdo), 黄砂 (ja) (こうさ, kōsa)
• Korean: 황사(黃砂) (ko) (hwangsa)
• Malay: loes
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: løss m

  Nynorsk: løss m

• Persian: بادرفت (fa)
• Polish: less (pl) m
• Portuguese: loess (pt) m, loesse (pt) m
• Russian: лёсс (ru) m (ljoss)
• Serbo-Croatian: prapor (sh) m

  Cyrillic: лес m

  Roman: les (sh) m

• Slovak: spraš
• Spanish: loess (es) m
• Ukrainian: лес m (les)
• Vietnamese: hoàng thổ (vi)

Further reading

• Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “loess”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

Anagrams

• selos, sloes, losse, soles, loses

Portuguese

Alternative forms

• loesse

Pronunciation

 

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈlɔ(j)s/ [ˈlɔ(ɪ̯)s]

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈlɔ(j)s/ [ˈlɔ(ɪ̯)s]
  • (Rio de Janeiro) IPA^(key): /ˈlɔ(j)ʃ/ [ˈlɔ(ɪ̯)ʃ]

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /ˈlɔʃ/

• Hyphenation: loess

Noun

loess m (uncountable)

1. (geology) loess (accumulation of wind-blown sediment)

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French lœss.

Noun

loess n (plural loessuri)

1. loess

Declension

Declension of loess

	singular			plural
	indefinite	definite		indefinite	definite
nominative-accusative	loess	loessul		loessuri	loessurile
genitive-dative	loess	loessului		loessuri	loessurilor
vocative	loessule			loessurilor