lavant
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.33 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A shallow or more or less intermittent spring, or the stream of water (bourne) which feeds and springs forth from such a spring.
British usage
name
A civil parish in Chichester district, West Sussex, England (OS grid ref SU8508).
name
A minor river in West Sussex.
name
A community in Lanark Highlands township, Lanark County, Ontario, Canada.
name
A municipality in East Tyrol, Austria.
Example Sentences
- "Lavants, are land springs, which break out much, on the downs of Sussex, Hants, and Wilts. The country people say, that when the Lavants rise, corn will be dear; meaning, that when the earth is so glutted with water as to send[…]"
- "In this part of Hampshire a bourn is called a lavant, and after long internals when a lavant rises at Hambledon, some of the springs rise from, or quite close to[,] the churchyard itself."
- "About five miles south of Petersfield, in a valley among the chalk hills, is the village of Charlton. No permanent stream flows through this vallet, but eastward of the village a remarkable "lavant" occurs. This lavant is a flow of water from springs in the chalk of an uncertain and intermittent nature, which occur in the winter or early spring, depending on the time and degree of the winter rainfall and the consequent saturation of the chalk. The lavant springs occur at varying elevations, depending on the nature of the seasons; the higher the lavant, the greater is the flow of water, […]"
- "[…] an intermittant stream (locally known as a "lavant," but in many parts called a "bourne") appears in the valley bottom […]"
- "The cold wet weather continued unabated during February and the underground springs ('lavants') began to break out of the chalk hills ominously early."
- "How it did rain! It ran down the street in a lavant."
Etymology
Uncertain. Possibly from Middle English *lavand, *lavant, lavande, present participle of Middle English laven (“to stream, pour out a stream, wash”), from Old English lafian (“to pour water on, wash, lave, bathe, ladle out”), equivalent to lave + -and; or from Old French lavant, present participle of laver (“to wash”). See lave.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Usage
- British usage
Inflected Forms
Phrases
East Lavant
Mid Lavant