page_title: Lake
section_title: Etymology, meaning, and usage of "lake"
hierarchical_section_title: Lake / Etymology, meaning, and usage of "lake"
caption_attribution_description: English: A summertime view of Blüemlisalp and Oeschinen Lake, Bernese Alps. Afrikaans: Oeschinen-meer in die Alpe. العربية: بحيرة Oeschinen في جبال الالب السويسرية، مثالا على المناظر الطبيعية المتنوعة جدا. Bosanski: Jezero Oeschinen u Švicarskim Alpima. فارسی: دریاچهٔ اوشینن در آلپ مرکزی، مثالی از یک منظرهٔ بسیار متنوع. Võro: Oeschineni järv Sveitsin Alpen. Français&#160;: L'Oeschinensee, Alpes bernoises. 贛語: 瑞士嗰一隻湖. हिन्दी: स्विस आल्प्स की ऐशिना झील, एक अत्यंत विविधतापूर्ण प्राकृतिक दृश्य का एक उदाहरण. Bahasa Indonesia: Danau Oeschinen di Pegunungan Alpen Swiss, salah satu contoh lanskap yang amat tak beragam. Íslenska: Oeschinenvatn í Ölpunum, dæmi um fjölbreytt landslag. Italiano: Il lago di Oeschinen, Alpi bernesi. ქართული: ოშინენის ტბა, შვეიცარიის ალპებში. ოეჩაინენის ტბა შვეიცარიის ალპებში, როგორც მარალდივერსიფიცირებული ლანდშაფტის ტიპური მაგალითი. Қазақша: "Альпі тауындағы ландшафт". ಕನ್ನಡ: ಸ್ವಿಸ್‌ ಆಲ್ಪ್ಸ್‌‌ನಲ್ಲಿರುವ ಓಷಿನೆನ್‌ ಸರೋವರ; ಅತೀವವಾಗಿ ವೈವಿಧ್ಯೀಕರಿಸಲ್ಪಟ್ಟ ಭೂದೃಶ್ಯವೊಂದರ ಉದಾಹರಣೆ. Lietuvių: Kalnų kraštovaizdis (Alpės). Ešineno ežeras, Berno kantonas. മലയാളം: ഓസ്ചിൻ തടാകം. Bahasa Melayu: Tasik Oeschinen di Alp Switzerland. Tasik Oeschinen di Banjaran Alps Switzerland, contoh landskap yang amat pelbagai. Norsk nynorsk: Oeschinensee. Polski: Jezioro Oeschinen. Саха тыла: Oeschinen Lake in the Swiss Alps. සිංහල: Oeschinen Lake in the Swiss Alps. తెలుగు: స్విస్ ఆల్ప్స్ లో ఉన్న ఒస్చినేన్ సరస్సు, అధికంగా వైవిధ్యం కలిగి ఉన్న ప్రకృతి దృశ్యం యొక్క ఉదాహరణ. Удмурт: Ты. Tiếng Việt: hồ Oeschinen. 中文: 瑞士的阿尔卑斯山风景. 瑞士阿尔卑斯山的厄希嫩湖，可作为高度多元化景观的一个典型。.
context_page_description: A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, apart from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although like the much larger oceans, they form part of earth's water cycle. Lakes are distinct from lagoons which are generally coastal parts of the ocean. They are generally larger and deeper than ponds, which also lie on land, though there are no official or scientific definitions. Lakes can be contrasted with rivers or streams, which are usually flowing in a channel on land. Most lakes are fed and drained by rivers and streams.
  Natural lakes are generally found in mountainous areas, rift zones, and areas with ongoing glaciation. Other lakes are found in endorheic basins or along the courses of mature rivers, where a river channel has widened into a basin. In some parts of the world there are many lakes because of chaotic drainage patterns left over from the last Ice Age. All lakes are temporary over geologic time scales, as they will slowly fill in with sediments or spill out of the basin containing them.
context_section_description: The word lake comes from Middle English lake ("lake, pond, waterway"), from Old English lacu ("pond, pool, stream"), from Proto-Germanic *lakō ("pond, ditch, slow moving stream"), from the Proto-Indo-European root *leǵ- ("to leak, drain"). Cognates include Dutch laak ("lake, pond, ditch"), Middle Low German lāke ("water pooled in a riverbed, puddle") as in: de:Wolfslake, de:Butterlake, German Lache ("pool, puddle"), and Icelandic lækur ("slow flowing stream"). Also related are the English words leak and leach.
  There is considerable uncertainty about defining the difference between lakes and ponds, and no current internationally accepted definition of either term across scientific disciplines or political boundaries exists. For example, limnologists have defined lakes as water bodies which are simply a larger version of a pond, which can have wave action on the shoreline or where wind-induced turbulence plays a major role in mixing the water column. None of these definitions completely excludes ponds and all are difficult to measure. For this reason, simple size-based definitions are increasingly used to separate ponds and lakes. Definitions for lake range in minimum sizes for a body of water from 2 hectares (5 acres) to 8 hectares (20 acres) (see also the definition of "pond"). Charles Elton, one of the founders of ecology, regarded lakes as waterbodies of 40 hectares (99 acres) or more. The term lake is also used to describe a feature such as Lake Eyre, which is a dry basin most of the time but may become filled under seasonal conditions of heavy rainfall. In common usage, many lakes bear names ending with the word pond, and a lesser number of names ending with lake are in quasi-technical fact, ponds. One textbook illustrates this point with the following: "In Newfoundland, for example, almost every lake is called a pond, whereas in Wisconsin, almost every pond is called a lake."
  One hydrology book proposes to define the term "lake" as a body of water with the following five characteristics:
  it partially or totally fills one or several basins connected by straits
  has essentially the same water level in all parts (except for relatively short-lived variations caused by wind, varying ice cover, large inflows, etc.)
  it does not have regular intrusion of seawater
  a considerable portion of the sediment suspended in the water is captured by the basins (for this to happen they need to have a sufficiently small inflow-to-volume ratio)
  the area measured at the mean water level exceeds an arbitrarily chosen threshold (for instance, one hectare)
  With the exception of the seawater intrusion criterion, the others have been accepted or elaborated upon by other hydrology publications.
caption: Oeschinen Lake in the Swiss Alps
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