fjord

See also: Fjord, fjørð, fjörð, and fjǫrð

English

WOTD – 17 May 2019

Etymology

A fjord in Aurland, Sogn og Fjordane, Norway

Unadapted borrowing from Norwegian fjord, from Old Norse fjǫrðr, from Proto-Germanic *ferþu, *ferþuz (“inlet, fjord”), from Proto-Indo-European *pértus (“crossing”), from *per- (“to carry forth”) + *-tus (suffix forming action nouns from verb roots). Doublet of firth, ford, and port.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfiːɔːd/, /fiˈɔːd/, /fjɔːd/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /fiˈɔɹd/, /fjɔɹd/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)d
• Hyphenation: fjord

Noun

fjord (plural fjords)

1. A long, narrow, deep inlet between cliffs.
   • 1839, T. D. W[hatley], “Section II. Norway.”, in A Hand-book for Travellers in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Russia, being a Guide to the Principal Routes in Those Countries, […], London: John Murray, […]; Leipzig: Black and Armstrong, →OCLC, page 73:

     About 20 English miles beyond this river, which is the largest in Norway, the road crosses the fjord which forms the boundary of the two kingdoms [Norway and Sweden]; and whose waters but too often in former days were dyed with the life-blood of many a bold mountaineer who crossed the "border stream" never to return.

   • 1841, Harriet Martineau, “The Water Sprites’ Doings.”, in Feats on the Fiord. A Tale (The Playfellow; a Series of Tales to be Published Quarterly; 3), London: Charles Knight & Co., […], →OCLC, pages 123–124:

     At last one gave a deep groan, and another declared that the spirits of the fiord were against them, and there was no doubt that their boat was now lying twenty fathoms deep, at the bottom of the creek; drawn down by the strong hand of an angry water-spirit. [...] Another said he would not go till he had looked abroad over the fiord, for some chance of seeing the boat.

   • 1894 August, Spitzbergen and Norway in August 1894: Itinerary of the Pleasure Cruise of the “S.S. Lusitania.” From 1st August to 2nd September (33 Days), London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company, Limited […], →OCLC, page 46:

     Like most of the larger inlets, and some of the inland lakes, the Sogne fjord is much deeper than the sea beyond, the depth in places being upwards of 4,000 feet, [...] Before the "glacial epoch," thousands of streams commenced the work of erosion and produced valleys and gorges. During the glacial epoch these channels were enlarged, and lake basins were hollowed out. The descending glaciers ground out fjords to their full length when the glacial epoch was at its height, but as it declined they ground out the inner parts to a still greater depth, producing the present character of the marine fjords, and giving rise to lake hollows in other places.

   • 1909, Ralph S[tockman] Tarr, “General Physiography”, in The Yakutat Bay Region, Alaska (United States Geographical Survey, Department of the Interior, Professional Paper; 64), Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, →OCLC, part I (Physiography and Glacial Geology), page 15:

     Disenchantment Bay, as the Yakutat Bay inlet is called north of Point Latouche, is bordered on the east by the steep hills of the peninsula and on the west by the main mountain front. Its coast is precipitous and through nearly its entire length it is a true mountain-walled fiord. The two mountain walls approach each other at Point Latouche almost at right angles, and Disenchantment Bay enters between them with a nearly north-south axis.

   • 1951, Richard A. Hebert, “Hancock County”, in Modern Maine: Its Historic Background, People and Resources, volume II, New York, N.Y.: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, part III (A County by County Descriptive Outline of City, Town and Country in Maine), page 281:

     In the center of Mount Desert Island is deep Somes Sound, almost bisecting the island and forming the only natural fjord on the entire Atlantic Coast of North America.

   • 1973 December, “Description of the Environment”, in Proposed Harding Icefield–Kenai Fjords National Monument, Alaska: Draft Environmental Impact Statement DES 73-86, [Washington, D.C.: Alaska Planning Group, National Park Service, Department of the Interior], →OCLC, section II.A.1 (Physical Environment), page 51:

     The warm Alaska Current raises the water temperature off the coast of the monument to approximately 55°F. in the summer, while winter temperatures range from 37.5° to 40°F. Temperatures in individual fjords vary due to tidewater glaciers and fresh water flowing into the fjords [...].

   • 2010, M. E. Inall, P. A. Gillibrand, “The Physics of Mid-latitude Fjords: A Review”, in J. A. Howe, W. E. N. Austin, M. Forwick, M. Paetzel, editors, Fjord Systems and Archives (Geographical Society Special Publication; no. 344), London: The Geological Society, →ISBN, page 17:

     Why should the flow of water within a fjord be of interest to the geologist? After all, fjordic geomorphology has changed little over the last few thousand years. One reason is that attention has recently focused on fjords as archives of Holocene climate change.

   • 2019, J. N. Moum, W. D. Smyth, “Upper Ocean Mixing”, in J. Kirk Cochran, Henry J. Bokuniewicz, Patricia L. Yager, editors, Encyclopedia of Ocean Sciences, volume I (Marine Biogeochemistry), London, San Diego, Calif.: Academic Press, →ISBN, page 75:

     Fiords are glacially carved oceanic intrusions into land. They are often deep and narrow with a sill in the mouth. Waters from neighboring seas and locally supplied fresh water fill up the fiords, often leading to strong stratification. Fiords with tidewater glaciers also contain glacial ice. During transport into and stay in the fiord, mixing processes modify the properties of imported water masses.

Alternative forms

• fiord (now chiefly New Zealand)

Derived terms

• fjorded
• fjord horse
• fjordic
• fjording
• fjordlike
• Kolding Fjord

 

Related terms

• fjard

Descendants

• → Japanese: フィヨルド (fiyorudo)

Translations

long, narrow, deep inlet

• Afrikaans: fjord
• Albanian: fjord (sq) m
• Arabic: خَلَل m (ḵalal), وَادٍ خِلَالِيّ m (wādin ḵilāliyy)
• Armenian: ֆյորդ (fyord), ֆիորդ (hy) (fiord)
• Azerbaijani: fyord
• Belarusian: фіёрд m (fijórd), ф'ёрд m (fʺjord)
• Bulgarian: фио́рд m (fiórd), фьорд m (fjord)
• Catalan: fiord (ca) m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 峽灣／峡湾 (zh) (xiáwān)

• Czech: fjord (cs) m
• Danish: fjord (da) c
• Dutch: fjord (nl) m or n
• Esperanto: fjordo
• Estonian: fjord (et)
• Faroese: fjørður (fo) m
• Finnish: vuono (fi)
• French: fjord (fr) m, fiord (fr) m
• Galician: fiorde m
• Georgian: ფიორდი (piordi)
• German: Fjord (de) m
• Greek: φιόρδ (el) n (fiórd)
• Greenlandic: kangerluk
• Hebrew: פְיוֹרְד (he) m (fyord)
• Hindi: फ़्योर्ड (fyorḍ)
• Hungarian: fjord (hu)
• Icelandic: fjörður (is) m
• Ido: fyordo (io)
• Indonesian: teluk kutub, fyord (id)
• Irish: caolsáile
• Italian: fiordo (it) m
• Japanese: フィヨルド (ja) (fiyorudo), 峡湾 (ja) (きょうわん, kyōwan)
• Kazakh: фьорд (ford)
• Korean: 피오르 (pioreu), 피오르드 (pioreudeu), 협만(峽灣) (hyeomman)
• Kyrgyz: фьорд (ford)
• Latvian: fjords (lv) m
• Lithuanian: fjordas m
• Macedonian: фјорд m (fjord)
• Malay: fiord
• Manx: keyllys sailley
• Maori: tai matapari
• Northern Sami: vuotna
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: fjord (no) m

  Nynorsk: fjord m

• Old Norse: fjǫrðr m, angr
• Persian: آبدره (fa) (âbdare), فیورد (fiyôrd)
• Polish: fiord (pl) m
• Portuguese: fiorde (pt) m
• Romanian: fiord (ro) n
• Russian: фьорд (ru) m (fʹord), фио́рд (ru) m (fiórd)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: фјо̏рд m

  Roman: fjȍrd (sh) m

• Slovak: fjord m
• Slovene: fjord (sl) m
• Spanish: fiordo (es) m
• Swedish: fjord (sv) c
• Tagalog: piyordo
• Tajik: фиорд (fiord)
• Tatar: фьорд (f’ord)
• Thai: ฟยอร์ด (fà-yɔ́ɔt)
• Turkish: fiyort (tr)
• Ukrainian: фіо́рд m (fiórd), фйорд m (fjord) (dated)
• Uzbek: fiord
• Vietnamese: vịnh hẹp băng hà
• Welsh: ffiord

Czech

Etymology

Borrowed from Old Norse fjǫrðr.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈfjort]

Noun

fjord m inan

1. fjord

Declension

Declension of fjord (hard masculine inanimate)

	singular	plural
nominative	fjord	fjordy
genitive	fjordu	fjordů
dative	fjordu	fjordům
accusative	fjord	fjordy
vocative	fjorde	fjordy
locative	fjordu	fjordech
instrumental	fjordem	fjordy

Danish

Etymology

From Old Danish fiorth, from Old Norse fjǫrðr (“firth, fjord”), from Proto-Germanic *ferþuz (“inlet, fjord”), from Proto-Indo-European *pértus (“crossing”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈfjoɐ̯ˀ]
• Rhymes: -oːɐ̯
• Homophone: fjor

Noun

fjord c (singular definite fjorden, plural indefinite fjorde)

1. firth, fjord, inlet

Inflection

Declension of fjord

common gender	Singular		Plural
	indefinite	definite	indefinite	definite
nominative	fjord	fjorden	fjorde	fjordene
genitive	fjords	fjordens	fjordes	fjordenes

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowing from Norwegian fjord, from Old Norse fjǫrðr.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fjɔrt/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: fjord
• Rhymes: -ɔrt

Noun

fjord f (plural fjorden, diminutive fjordje n)

1. fjord
2. Fjord horse

   Synonym: fjordenpaard

Derived terms

• fjordenkust
• fjordenpaard

 

Related terms

• voord

French

Alternative forms

• fiord

Etymology

Borrowed from Norwegian fjord, from Old Norse fjǫrðr. Doublet of port.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fjɔʁd/, /fjɔʁ/

• Audio (Paris)

  (file)

• (Quebec) IPA^(key): /fjɔʁ/, /fjɔː(ʁ)/

Noun

fjord m (plural fjords)

1. fjord

Descendants

• → Romanian: fiord
• → Turkish: fiyort
• → Vietnamese: phi-oóc

Further reading

• “fjord”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Hungarian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈfjord]

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: fjord
• Rhymes: -ord

fjord

Noun

fjord (plural fjordok)

1. fjord (a long, narrow, deep inlet between cliffs)

Declension

Inflection (stem in -o-, back harmony)
	singular	plural
nominative	fjord	fjordok
accusative	fjordot	fjordokat
dative	fjordnak	fjordoknak
instrumental	fjorddal	fjordokkal
causal-final	fjordért	fjordokért
translative	fjorddá	fjordokká
terminative	fjordig	fjordokig
essive-formal	fjordként	fjordokként
essive-modal	—	—
inessive	fjordban	fjordokban
superessive	fjordon	fjordokon
adessive	fjordnál	fjordoknál
illative	fjordba	fjordokba
sublative	fjordra	fjordokra
allative	fjordhoz	fjordokhoz
elative	fjordból	fjordokból
delative	fjordról	fjordokról
ablative	fjordtól	fjordoktól
non-attributive possessive - singular	fjordé	fjordoké
non-attributive possessive - plural	fjordéi	fjordokéi

Possessive forms of fjord
possessor	single possession	multiple possessions
1st person sing.	fjordom	fjordjaim
2nd person sing.	fjordod	fjordjaid
3rd person sing.	fjordja	fjordjai
1st person plural	fjordunk	fjordjaink
2nd person plural	fjordotok	fjordjaitok
3rd person plural	fjordjuk	fjordjaik

References

• Bakos, Ferenc and Pál Fábián. Idegen szavak és kifejezések szótára (’A Dictionary of Foreign Words and Phrases’). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1989. →ISBN

Norwegian Bokmål

fjord

Etymology

From Old Norse fjǫrðr, from Proto-Germanic *ferþuz (“inlet, fjord”), from Proto-Indo-European *pértus (“crossing”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fjuːr/, [fjuːɾ]

Noun

fjord m (definite singular fjorden, indefinite plural fjorder, definite plural fjordene)

1. a fjord

Usage notes

Incorporated into the names of fjords as -fjorden.

Derived terms

• fjordarm
• fjordhest
• fjordsjø
• Oslofjorden

 

Descendants

• → Catalan: fiord
• → Dutch: fjord
• → English: fjord, fiord
  • → Japanese: フィヨルド (fiyorudo)
• → French: fjord, fiord
  • → Romanian: fiord
  • → Turkish: fiyort
  • → Vietnamese: phi-oóc
• → Georgian: ფიორდი (piordi)
• → German: Fjord
  • → Estonian: fjord
• → Hungarian: fjord
• → Italian: fiordo
• → Polish: fiord
• → Portuguese: fiorde
• → Russian: фьорд (fʹord)
• → Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic script: фјо̏рд

  Latin script: fjȍrd

• → Slovak: fjord
• → Spanish: fiordo

References

“fjord” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology

From Old Norse fjǫrðr, from Proto-Germanic *ferþuz (“inlet, fjord”), from Proto-Indo-European *pértus (“crossing”). Akin to English firth.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fjuːr/
• (thick L) IPA^(key): /fjuːɽ/
• (Sunnmøre) IPA^(key): [fjo̞ːɾˠ]

Noun

fjord m (definite singular fjorden, indefinite plural fjordar, definite plural fjordane)

1. a fjord
2. a big long lake in Eastern Norway (e.g. Tyrifjorden, Tunhovdfjorden, Randsfjorden, Tisleifjorden)

Usage notes

Incorporated into the names of fjords and lakes as -fjorden.

Derived terms

• fjordarm
• fjordhest
• fjordsjø
• Oslofjorden

 

Descendants

• → Catalan: fiord
• → Dutch: fjord
• → English: fjord, fiord
  • → Japanese: フィヨルド (fiyorudo)
• → French: fjord, fiord
  • → Romanian: fiord
  • → Turkish: fiyort
  • → Vietnamese: phi-oóc
• → Georgian: ფიორდი (piordi)
• → German: Fjord
  • → Estonian: fjord
• → Hungarian: fjord
• → Italian: fiordo
• → Polish: fiord
• → Portuguese: fiorde
• → Russian: фьорд (fʹord)
• → Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic script: фјо̏рд

  Latin script: fjȍrd

• → Slovak: fjord
• → Spanish: fiordo

References

“fjord” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Serbo-Croatian

Etymology

From Norwegian fjord, from Old Norse fjǫrðr.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fjôrd/

Noun

fjȍrd m (Cyrillic spelling фјо̏рд)

1. fjord

Declension

Declension of fjord

	singular	plural
nominative	fjȍrd	fjòrdovi
genitive	fjorda	fjòrdōvā
dative	fjordu	fjordovima
accusative	fjord	fjordove
vocative	fjorde	fjordovi
locative	fjordu	fjordovima
instrumental	fjordom	fjordovima

References

• “fjord” in Hrvatski jezični portal

Slovak

Etymology

Borrowed from Norwegian fjord.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈfjɔrt/

Noun

fjord m inan (genitive singular fjordu, nominative plural fjordy, genitive plural fjordov, declension pattern of dub)

1. fjord

Declension

Declension of fjord

	singular	plural
nominative	fjord	fjordy
genitive	fjordu	fjordov
dative	fjordu	fjordom
accusative	fjord	fjordy
locative	fjorde	fjordoch
instrumental	fjordom	fjordami

Further reading

• “fjord”, in Slovníkový portál Jazykovedného ústavu Ľ. Štúra SAV [Dictionary portal of the Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics, Slovak Academy of Science] (in Slovak), https://slovnik.juls.savba.sk, 2024

Swedish

Etymology

From Old Swedish fiordher, from Old Norse fjǫrðr, from Proto-Norse *ᚠᛖᚱᚦᚢᛉ (*ferþuʀ), from Proto-Germanic *ferþuz (“inlet, fjord”), from Proto-Indo-European *pértus (“crossing”). Doublet of fjärd.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈfjuːrd/, [ˈfjuːɖ], /ˈfjoːrd/, [ˈfjoːɖ]

Noun

fjord c

1. (geography) a fjord

Declension

Declension of fjord
	Singular		Plural
	Indefinite	Definite	Indefinite	Definite
Nominative	fjord	fjorden	fjordar	fjordarna
Genitive	fjords	fjordens	fjordars	fjordarnas

Related terms

• fjärd

See also

• vik

References

• fjord in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• fjord in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• fjord in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)
• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “fjord”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.