HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

An ait (, like ''eight'') or eyot () is a small island. It is especially used to refer to
river island River Island is a London-based, multi-channel fashion brand, founded in 1948 by Bernard Lewis. The retailer has a presence in over 125 of worldwide markets, in stores and online. Best known for its trend focused womenswear offering, River Isl ...
s found on the
River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...
and its tributaries in
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. Aits are typically formed by the deposit of
sediment Sediment is a naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of wind, water, or ice or by the force of gravity acting on the particles. For example, sa ...
in the water, which accumulates. An ait is characteristically long and narrow, and may become a permanent island should it become secured and protected by growing vegetation. However, aits may also be eroded: the resulting sediment is deposited further downstream and could result in another ait. A channel with numerous aits is called a
braided channel A braided river, or braided channel, consists of a network of river channel (geography), channels separated by small, often temporary, islands called braid bars or, in English usage, ''aits'' or ''eyots''. Braided streams tend to occur in rivers ...
.


Etymology

The word derives from
Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
''iggath'' (or ''igeth''); the root of the word, ''ieg'', meaning island, with a diminutive suffix.


References in literature

Although not common in 21st-century English, "ait" or "eyot" appears in J. R. R. Tolkien's ''
The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's b ...
'',
Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...
's ''
Bleak House ''Bleak House'' is a novel by Charles Dickens, first published as a 20-episode serial between March 1852 and September 1853. The novel has many characters and several sub-plots, and is told partly by the novel's heroine, Esther Summerson, and ...
'', and
Thackeray William Makepeace Thackeray (; 18 July 1811 – 24 December 1863) was a British novelist, author and illustrator. He is known for his satirical works, particularly his 1848 novel ''Vanity Fair'', a panoramic portrait of British society, and th ...
's '' Vanity Fair''. (
Google Ngram Viewer The Google Ngram Viewer or Google Books Ngram Viewer is an online search engine that charts the frequencies of any set of search strings using a yearly count of n-grams found in printed sources published between 1500 and 2019 in Google's text co ...
)
Joyce Cary Arthur Joyce Lunel Cary (7 December 1888 – 29 March 1957) was an Anglo-Irish novelist and colonial official. Early life and education Arthur Joyce Lunel Cary was born in his grandparents' home, above the Belfast Bank in Derry, Ireland in 1 ...
used "eyot" in '' The Horse's Mouth'' – "Sun was in the bank. Streak of salmon below. Salmon trout above soaking into wash blue. River whirling along so fast that its skin was pulled into wrinkles like silk dragged over the floor. Shot silk. Fresh breeze off the eyot. Sharp as spring frost. Ruffling under the silk-like muscles in a nervous horse. Ruffling under my grief like ice and hot daggers". More recently, "eyot" was used by
Terry Pratchett Sir Terence David John Pratchett (28 April 1948 – 12 March 2015) was an English humourist, satirist, and author of fantasy novels, especially comical works. He is best known for his '' Discworld'' series of 41 novels. Pratchett's first no ...
in the first of the ''
Discworld ''Discworld'' is a comic fantasy"Humorous Fantasy" in David Pringle, ed., ''The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy'' (pp.31-33). London, Carlton,2006. book series written by the English author Terry Pratchett, set on the Discworld, a flat ...
'' books, ''
The Colour of Magic ''The Colour of Magic'' is a 1983 fantasy comedy novel by Terry Pratchett, and is the first book of the ''Discworld'' series. The first printing of the British edition consisted of only 506 copies. Pratchett has described it as "an attempt to ...
''. It also appears in ''The Pope's Rhinoceros'' by
Lawrence Norfolk Lawrence Norfolk (born 1963) is a British novelist known for historical works with complex plots and intricate detail. Biography Though born in London, Norfolk lived in Iraq until 1967 and then in the West Country of England. He read Engli ...
.


See also

* *


References


External links

* {{Rivers, streams and springs Fluvial landforms Islands of England Islands of the River Thames an:Mechana mk:Средорек