noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A collection of small particles, particularly dirt, that precipitates from a river or other body of water. countable, uncountable

   "The Nile delta is composed of sediment that was washed down and deposited at the mouth of the river."

2. 2
   matter that has been deposited by some natural process wordnet

Verb

1. 1
   To deposit material as a sediment. transitive
2. 2
   settle as sediment wordnet
3. 3
   To be deposited as a sediment. intransitive
4. 4
   deposit as a sediment wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

alluvionalluviumashbottomscinderclinker

Example

More examples

"By means of a super high-pressure water spray practically all the sediment is removed."

Etymology

From Middle French sédiment, from Latin sedimentum < sedeō.

Related phrases

hemipelagic sedimentbody of water

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.