Vocabulary from Geography: Polder

wondrous memeWelcome to Wondrous Words Wednesday, a great way to meet other word nerds and learn new vocabulary.  Visit Kathy at Bermudaonion.net for more interesting words.

Even on Christmas Day, a word nerd can learn something new.  My oldest son got “Nanoblocks” in his stocking.  Imagine Legos, but super tiny.  There’s a whole series of architectural wonders recreated with these microblock models.  My son got Kinderdijk Windmill and Big Ben.  (Very fitting, since his grandfather is from the Netherlands and his aunt is from England.  Way to go, Santa!)

The village of Kinderdijk, Netherlands, sits in a polder.  Nineteen windmills drain the polder.
The village of Kinderdijk, Netherlands, sits in a polder. Nineteen windmills drain the polder.

During construction of the micro windmill, my son and my father started talking about “polders”.  I paused and looked up.

Polders?”

“World G,” my son replied.  (translation: World Geography)

“They’re all over Holland,” Dad said.

I pulled out the Merriam-Webster iPhone app and looked them up.

polder \pōl-dər\ noun; Dutch; a tract of low land (as in the Netherlands) reclaimed from a body of water (as the sea).

Word Nerd Workout

Geography has lots of interesting words: archipelago, peninsula, delta.  Can you share an interesting word from geography?  Let’s generate a big list and call ourselves geography wizards!

Thanks for getting nerdy with me!

Julia 

Julia Tomiak
I believe in the power of words to improve our lives, and I help people find interesting words to read. Member of SCBWI.

11 Comments

  1. I love the fact that your father and son were talking about polders and you learned something from them!

    My word from geography is tributary: a river or stream flowing into a larger river or lake.

  2. Last weekend we took the girls to Natural Tunnel State Park just across the VA border and saw some amazing examples of karst geography. Karst: a landscape formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks. Thanks for always challenging us to get our nerd on, Julia!!

    1. Very cool. I’ve never heard of Natural Tunnel State Park (but apparently, we must visit) or Karsts! Thanks for teaching me something today, Hokie! *high fives*

  3. A polder sounds awfully dangerous to me. It makes me wonder at what point the sea is going to reclaim that land!

    1. The Kinderdijk windmills have keep the polder safe for almost 300 years now, but with the prediction of rising sea waters, who knows? I heard an NPR story about how Key West is using the Netherlands as a model as it prepares for rising sea levels.

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