nullah means A stream-bed, ravine, or other watercourse; a drain for rain or floodwater. It carries an Arena rating of 1557, earned across 5 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, nullah ranks #1,904 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #1,912 of 17,127 for Most Vivid Words, #2,117 of 17,142 for Most Ingenious Words, #3,125 of 17,149 for Most Exacting Words.
Why “nullah” is a great word
A watercourse, either a natural stream-bed or ravine common in South Asia, or an open-air, concrete-lined storm drain characteristic of Hong Kong, borrowed from Bengali নালা (nala) and Hindi नाला (nālā), both meaning 'drain' or 'watercourse', from Sanskrit नाडी (nāḍī, 'pipe, tube, channel'). Unlike a gully, a term of broader geography for an eroded valley, or an aqueduct, a monumental feat of engineered conveyance, a nullah is a local fact—functional, unadorned, and specific to its terrain. It is the baked-mud trench waiting for the monsoon, the stark cement canal cutting through a metropolis of towers, and the seasonal artery that is, for most of the year, just a path through dust and litter—a reminder that infrastructure, at its most essential, is merely the shape of a need.
Etymology
Borrowed from Bengali নালা (nala), Hindi नाला (nālā), from Sanskrit नाडी (nāḍī).
noun
- A stream-bed, ravine, or other watercourse; a drain for rain or floodwater.
- An open-air, concrete-lined channel for draining rain or wastewater; a storm drain.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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