inlet

UK/ˈɪnlət/US/ˈɪnlət/

nounB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,906 of 15,258mostly written

Other forms: inlets

An inlet is a narrow arm of sea reaching into the land. A rocky inlet, shelter in the inlet, a tidal inlet.

It is the general word covering fjords, creeks and bays alike, and it says nothing about how the thing was formed. In machinery an inlet is the opening where something enters, as against the outlet where it leaves.

Definitions of inlet

1nouninletA narrow arm of sea reaching into the land.B2+
“We anchored the boat in a quiet inlet sheltered from the wind.”

inlet is an arm of sea.

Where it comes from

Middle English inlate, from in plus let, a place where the sea is let in.

Middle English
inlate — inlet, entrance
English, today
inlet

Built from

inleten · Middle English — to let in

From Middle English inlate (“inlet, entrance”), from inleten (“to let in”), equivalent to in + let. Compare Low German inlat (“inlet”), German Einlass (“inlet, entrance”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Nature & Weather

Practise this word

inlet in the wild

The narrow channel of the inlet funnels the tides creating very fast-moving currents, rip tides, and occasional bore tides.
Cook Inlet
The inner inlet then widens into Vancouver Harbour, which hosts the Port of Vancouver, Canada's largest port.
Burrard Inlet
Sechelt Inlet formerly Seechelt Inlet is one of the principal inlets of the British Columbia Coast.
Sechelt Inlet
The latter is about 15 km (9.3 mi) in length and emerges on the main inlet just inside the inner mouth of the Skookumchuck Narrows.
Sechelt Inlet
Kingcome Inlet has a short side inlet, Wakeman Sound, fed by the Wakeman River.
Kingcome Inlet

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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