loch

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View across Loch Lomond, towards Ben Lomond.

A loch (pronounced /ˈlɒx/, or /ˈlɒk/, usually spelled Lough as a name element outside Scotland), is a body of water which is either:

• a lake or
• a sea inlet, which may be also a firth, fjord, estuary, strait, or bay.

Sea-inlet lochs are often called sea lochs.

Background

Looking down Loch Long, which is a sea loch

This name for a body of water is Gaelic^[1] in origin and is applied to most lakes in Scotland and to many sea inlets in the west and north of Scotland. The word is Indo-European in origin; cf. Latin lacus, English 'lake'. For a list, see List of lochs in Scotland.

As a name element Loch has been anglicised to Lough for many bodies of water in Ireland and is also used for some bodies of water in the north of England (many of which used to be called "meres" (a Northern English dialect word for "lake" and an archaic Standard English word meaning "a lake that is broad in relation to its depth") such as the Black Lough in Northumberland^[2]. However, reference to the latter as lochs or loughs (lower case initial), rather than as lakes, inlets and so on, is unusual. For lists, see List of Irish loughs and List of English loughs.

Although there is no strict size definition, a small loch is often known as a lochan (so spelled also in Scottish Gaelic; in Irish it is spelled lochán).

Perhaps the most famous Scottish loch is Loch Ness, although there are other large examples such as Loch Awe, Loch Lomond and Loch Tay.

Examples of sea lochs in Scotland include Loch Long, Loch Fyne, Loch Linnhe, Loch Eriboll, Loch Tristan, Trisloch.

The uses of lochs

Loch Lubnaig, a reservoir

Some new reservoirs for hydroelectric schemes have been given names faithful to the names for natural bodies of water - for example: the Loch Sloy scheme, and Lochs Laggan and Treig (which form part of the Lochaber hydroelectric scheme near Fort William). Other expanses are simply called reservoirs, eg: Blackwater Reservoir above Kinlochleven.

Scottish lakes

The Lake of Menteith (Loch Innis MoCholmaig), the only "lake" in Scotland

Scotland has very few natural water bodies actually called 'lakes'. The Lake of Menteith, an Anglicisation of the Scots Laich o Menteith meaning a "low-lying bit of land in Menteith", and applied to the loch there because of the similarity of the sounds of the words laich and lake. The Lake of the Hirsel, Pressmennan Lake and Lake Louise, (In the grounds of Skibo Castle), are other bodies of water in Scotland which are called lakes and all are man-made. Some Scots will correct anyone who refers to "lochs" as "lakes".

The word "loch" is used as a shibboleth to identify natives of England, because the hard "ch" (IPA: [x]) sound is used in Scotland whereas most English people pronounce the word like "lock".

Lochs beyond Scotland and Ireland

As "loch" is a common Gaelic word, it is also found as the root of several Manx placenames.

The United States naval port of Pearl Harbor, located on the south coast of the main Hawaiian island of Oahu, is one of a complex of sea inlets. Several of these are named as lochs, viz. South East Loch, Merry Loch, East Loch, Middle Loch and West Loch.

Brenton Loch in the Falkland Islands is a sea loch, near Lafonia, East Falkland.

See also

• Lough
• Firth
• Fjord
• Estuary
• Bay
• Ria

References

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (November 2009)

External links

• UKLakes Online Database