pororoca

Definitions

noun a tidal flood especially at the mouth of the Amazon River that regularly or occasionally rushes with a roaring noise into the river and proceeds in one or more waves that often present a very abrupt front of considerable height.

From a Tupian word meaning great destructive noise.

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_ "pororoca," _ that species of eddy which for three days in the height of the syzygies raises the waters of the Amazon, and turns them back at the rate of seventeen kilometers per hour.

Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon Jules Verne 1866
But it is not so with the “pororoca,” that species of eddy which for three days in the height of the syzygies raises the waters of the

Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon 2003
The Amazon River also has its Bore; the Indians, trying to imitate the sound of the roaring water, call it "pororoca."

Over the Border: Acadia, the Home of "Evangeline"
"And whose waters the ocean does not pond back without raising in a strife which is phenomenal, a tide-race, or _'pororoca, '_ to which the ebbs, the bores, and the eddies of other rivers are but tiny ripples fanned up by the breeze."

Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon Jules Verne 1866