Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An area of low-lying land, especially in the Netherlands, that has been reclaimed from a body of water and is protected by dikes.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A boggy or marshy soil; a morass; specifically, a tract of marshy land in the Netherlands, Flanders, and northern Germany, which has been reclaimed and brought under cultivation.
Wiktionary
- n. An area of ground reclaimed from a sea or lake by means of dikes.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Holland & Belgium A tract of low land reclaimed from the sea by of high embankments.
WordNet 3.0
- n. low-lying land that has been reclaimed and is protected by dikes (especially in the Netherlands)
Etymologies
- From Dutch. The root is 'pol', which is the same as 'ball'. A 'pol' was a low artificial hill in a coastal marshland whereupon a farmhouse could be build. The original plural was probably 'poller', which became 'polder'. From the small hill the word eventually referred to the land around it. (Wiktionary)
- Dutch, from Middle Dutch. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Dutchman's mouth water -- a "polder" of surpassing excellence, but it is viewed in a different light by enthusiastic wild duck shooters, who, like the owner of a grouse moor, look upon drainage and reclamation as the visible work of the devil.”
Disturbed Ireland Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81.
“On the opposite side of the road stretches a long, flat meadow, or "polder," up to the little village which nestles so snugly around its tall church tower; the latter fulfilling also the purpose of a beacon, lit by night, to guide the wayfarer on sea and land; scene of tireless industry, comfortable prosperity, and smiling peace. ...”
Pictures Every Child Should Know A Selection of the World's Art Masterpieces for Young People
“You can keep following the Vecht to where it breaks into open polder land, viewing, while you're at it, the system of fortifications that used flooding as a military defense system for the country.”
“His stuff isn't precisely fantasy or science fiction, but sits in that polder between purely genre books and purely mainstream.”
“You don't have to go through a portal to find a magic polder, a refuge from reality.”
“Half an hour by train from Amsterdam, formidably modern Almere sits on the flat plain of the Flevoland polder – a tract of land enclosed by dykes bordering the waters of the Markermeer.”
The Guardian: Geert Wilders, the ultra-right firebrand, campaigns to be Holland's prime minister
“Just 39% of those living in the city are native Dutch, half born in Amsterdam, who were attracted by the idea of a quiet life in the midst of the green polder.”
The Guardian: Geert Wilders, the ultra-right firebrand, campaigns to be Holland's prime minister
“I have been absent as I am working on a Dutch language history book on the pre-internet period in the polder.”
“Lately the blog has been underused, as a book is being produced about the pre-internet period in the polder, electronic media in The Netherlands from 1967-1997.”
“There is a polder/prison relationship at play between the realms here, an ordained way of things in which the hero gets to cross the seam, while the monster does not, the portal exists to be crossed, while the rift exists to be closed.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘polder’.
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phrontistery - p
from phrontistery.info
pabouche, pabulous, pabulum, pacable, pace, pachydermia, pachyglossal, pachymeter, pachynsis, paciferous, pacificate, pactolian and 1766 more...
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ENVI - water protection
surface system, supply, substrate, subsoil, superficial deposit, sub-basin, stream gaging sta..., spillway, stratification, surface fresh water, stop valve, sprinkler and 398 more...
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Realia from Everywhere
Culturally defined terms and expressions from the four corners of the world
fjord, mistral steppe, tornado, tsunami, polder, kiwi, koala, sequoia, Abominable Snowman, paprika, spaghetti, empanada and 299 more...
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Land
A list of terms for land, landholdings, or words that contain the string -land-.
scabland, wheatland, cornland, slander, land-locked, dryland, riceland, clandestine, acreage, island, Iceland, Greenland and 269 more...
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Specifically
Being a list of words which have "specifically" in their definitions.
recompose, specifically, Dutch, abstinence, discipline, virtue, namely, opening, century, amalgamation, cup, second and 303 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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EEEEEUUUUU!!!! The cockpit of Europe.
Beer. "French" fries. Mussels. Chocolate. Waffles. Lace. Walloons.
Yes, of course - we're talking about Belgium. Just the other day, Samantha Brown was on the travel channel, boasting ...smurf, pieter breughel, georges simenon, maigret, eddy merckx, adolphe sax, hergé, tintin, leo baekeland, jacques brel, audrey hepburn, jean-claude van d... and 48 more...
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Hey! L...
for the same
ichthyarchy, thalassic, nip-cheese, cerement, manavalins, rockweed, polder, semipalmate, blue peter, curragh, crowfoot, cat and 158 more...
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Review
Words to study and become more familiar with.
phatic, tontine, backronym, polyptoton, fissiparous, deus ex machina, orrery, prolly, mad props, snog, oubliette, copyleft and 101 more...
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What David Foster Wallace circled in ...
ablative, ablaut, abulia, acephalous, ACTH, adit, adumbrate, agrapha, ailanthus, aleatory, alfresco, algolagnia and 474 more...
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learning
A list of words whose meanings I am learning, either because a) I don't know the meaning b) I know the meaning, but could stand to better appreciate certain inflections or secondary meanings or c) ...
louche, educe, loam, cob, sclerotic, palliate, axial, syndicalist, ecumenical, sally, fatuous, parvenu and 1381 more...
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What David Foster Wallace Circled in ...
http://www.slate.com/id/2250784/
ablative absolute, ablaut, abulia, acephalous, ACTH, adit, adumbrate, agrapha, aleatory, ailanthus, alfresco, algolagnia and 482 more...
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looked up
Words I've come across while reading and looked up in the dictionary.
deesis, pendentive, revetment, aedicule, stemma, patera, ephod, entrepot, corbel, exedra, volute, archivolt and 1408 more...
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Phrases and words I didn't know
give up the ghost, ninja'd, coal-hole, hotting up, chancer, clave, salaryman, turf accountant, cremains, autoclave, hummingbird mind, gank and 175 more...
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Lay of the Land
all kinds of scapes
steppe, veld, veldt, campo, llano, taiga, krummholz, elfinwood, tundra, sward, lea, heath and 197 more...
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Geology Words
The descriptive science described.
earth, lithosphere, mineral, convection, heat flow, ore, deep time, fossil, formation, rock, tectonics, extinction and 281 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for polder.
knitandpurl "Their big pile, which weighs down the middle of the island with its austere vernacular chunkiness, is dubbed 'Holland', because of some Traill's dubious notion that this green lozenge resembled the fertile polders of the Netherlands."
Psychogeography by Will Self, 228 Oct 17, 2010
oroboros Reclaimed lowlands, as in the Netherlands; reclaimed from the sea and protected by dikes. Used by Jared Diamond in "Collapse" ("the Earth is a polder"). Apr 2, 2007