ebb
/ɛb/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.04 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
2
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A low state; a state of depression.
Example Sentences
- "The boats will go out on the ebb."
- "Thou shoreless flood which in thy ebb and flow / Claspest the limits of morality!"
- "Men come from distant parts to admire the tides of Solway, which race in at flood and retreat at ebb with a greater speed than a horse can follow."
- "Thus all the treasure of our flowing years, / Our ebb of life for ever takes away."
- "This reflection thawed my congealing blood, and again the tide of life and love flowed impetuously onward, again to ebb as my busy thoughts changed."
- "Industrialism hasn’t been an abiding set of activities in any particular place but rather a dynamic cycle, of takeoff, peak, and ebb."
Etymology
From Middle English ebbe, from Old English ebba (“ebb, tide”), from Proto-West Germanic *abbjā, from Proto-Germanic *abjô, *abjǭ, from Proto-Germanic *ab (“off, away”), from Proto-Indo-European *apó. See also West Frisian ebbe, Dutch eb, German Ebbe, Danish ebbe, Old Norse efja (“countercurrent”), Old English af. More at of, off.