seichen.
/seɪʃ/, U.S. /seɪ(t)ʃ/ Physical Geography.
A short-lived standing oscillation of a lake or other body of water (as a bay or basin of the sea), somewhat resembling a tide, which may be caused by abrupt changes in atmospheric conditions or by small earth tremors.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the earth > water > flow or flowing > wave > types of waves > [noun] > high wave caused by movement of tide > in lake
seiche1839
1839 G. Roberts Dict. Geol. Seiches (Swiss term); an occasional undulation of the water of lakes, like a tide wave, sometimes to the height of five feet, supposed to be caused by the unequal pressure of the atmosphere.
1852 T. Ross tr. A. von Humboldt Personal Narr. Trav. Amer. I. i. 24 M. Vaucher thinks that the tides in the lake of Geneva, known by the name of the seiches, arise from the same cause.
1898 G. H. Darwin Tides ii. 37 Although, then, it is possible to indicate causes competent to produce seiches, yet we cannot as yet point out the particular cause for any individual seiche.
1905 Geogr. Jrnl. 26 46 A seiche was observed..within the shelter of the pier at the east end of Loch a' Chroisg... The amplitude was a quarter of an inch, and the period about 11½ minutes.
1932 Geogr. Rev. 22 476 The strongest current caused by the seiches was found in the south-east corner of Great Bear Lake.
1957 G. E. Hutchinson Treat. Limnol. I. v. 299 The phenomenon has long been recognized locally in the Lake of Geneva, and the term seiche was recorded by Fatio de Duillier (1730) as applied to the oscillation in that lake.
1962 New Scientist 13 Sept. 560/1 Wind can also cause whole lakes and bays to oscillate..and these movements, called ‘seiches’, can communicate energy to the ground.
1971 Nature 4 June 306/2 The dominant internal seiche has a wavelength twice the length of the Loch, and a marked asymmetry.
Derivatives
ˈseiching n. the occurrence of a seiche; the motion occurring in a seiche.
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the world > the earth > water > lake > [noun] > seiching
seiching1955
1955 Sci. Amer. Jan. 2/2 The extreme heights reached by the water in specific locations is due to another phenomenon known to oceanographers as ‘seiching’, which is similar to the sloshing of water in a bathtub.
1967 Oceanogr. & Marine Biol. 5 27 In contrast, Corkan..and Rossiter..found..little evidence of North Sea seiching.
1971 Nature 4 June 308/1 It is likely that the effect of the Earth's rotation is principally to cause a small alternating transverse tilt of the isotherms across the Loch during the seiching motion.
seiˈchometer n. [-meter comb. form2] an instrument for measuring seiches.
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1903 Nature 23 Apr. 599/2 Sir John Murray..exhibited a seichometer with which he hoped in the coming season to get a more definite and precise record of these oscillations.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1911; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1839