Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The flow of water against a shore or bank.
  • noun Inundation by water; flood.
  • noun Law The increasing of land area along a shore by deposited alluvium or by the recession of water.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Formerly— The wash of the sea against the shore, or of a river against its banks.
  • noun The material deposited by seas or rivers; alluvium (which see).
  • noun In modern legal use, an increase of land on a shore or a river-bank by the action of water, as by a current or by waves, whether from natural or from artificial causes.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Wash or flow of water against the shore or bank.
  • noun An overflowing; an inundation; a flood.
  • noun Matter deposited by an inundation or the action of flowing water; alluvium.
  • noun (Law) An accession of land gradually washed to the shore or bank by the flowing of water. See Accretion.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun law The increase in the area of land due to the deposition of sediment (alluvium) by a river.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the rising of a body of water and its overflowing onto normally dry land
  • noun clay or silt or gravel carried by rushing streams and deposited where the stream slows down
  • noun gradual formation of new land, by recession of the sea or deposit of sediment

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin alluviō, alluviōn-, from alluere, to wash against : ad-, ad- + -luere, to wash; see leu(ə)- in Indo-European roots.]

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Examples

  • The accessions, which are made to land, bordering upon rivers, follow the land, say the civilians, provided it be made by what they call alluvion, that is, insensibly and imperceptibly; which are circumstances, that assist the imagination in the conjunction.

    An Enquiry into the Principles of Morals 2006

  • The accessions, which are made to land, bordering upon rivers, follow the land, say the civilians, provided it be made by what they call alluvion, that is, insensibly and imperceptibly; which are circumstances, that assist the imagination in the conjunction.

    An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals David Hume 1743

  • The accessions, which are made to lands bordering upon rivers, follow the land, say the civilians, provided it be made by what they call alluvion, that is, Insensibly and Imperceptibly; which are circumstances that mightily assist the imagination in the conjunction.

    A Treatise of Human Nature David Hume 1743

  • The accessions, which are made to lands bordering upon rivers, follow the land, say the civilians, provided it be made by what they call alluvion, that is, Insensibly and Imperceptibly; which are circumstances that mightily assist the imagination in the conjunction.

    A Treatise of Human Nature 1739

  • The soil of the alluvion is warm, rich and productive; that of the uplands rather wet and cold, but excellent for pasture and meadow.

    Living in Dryden: Dryden from 1812 to 1822 2004

  • The soil of the alluvion is warm, rich and productive; that of the uplands rather wet and cold, but excellent for pasture and meadow.

    Living in Dryden: July 2004 Archives 2004

  • There is also another small stream, and there is an abundance of mill seats with considerable tracts of alluvion; though the general character is hilly with pretty lofty ridges.

    Living in Dryden: July 2004 Archives 2004

  • There is also another small stream, and there is an abundance of mill seats with considerable tracts of alluvion; though the general character is hilly with pretty lofty ridges.

    Living in Dryden: Dryden from 1812 to 1822 2004

  • Except at the season of floods, it is not navigable; but the alluvion through which it flows is very productive, while the pine forest immediately to the west is sterile.

    Destruction and Reconstruction: Personal Experiences of the Late War Richard Taylor

  • The Bayou Pierre, three hundred feet wide and too deep to ford, leaves the Red River a few miles below Shreveport, and after a long course, in which it frequently expands into lakes, returns to its parent stream three miles above Grand Ecore, dividing the pine-clad hills on the west from the alluvion of the river on the east.

    Destruction and Reconstruction: Personal Experiences of the Late War Richard Taylor

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