tideline means A line of floating debris, seaweed etc. that marks the boundary between two surface currents. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 92 out of 100.
Why “tideline” is a great word
TIDELINE — [Noun] A line of floating debris, seaweed, or other material that marks the boundary between two surface currents or the highest point reached by a tide. From tide (Old English tīd, "time, period, season") + line (Old English līne, "cord, rope, series"). Unlike "tidemark" (a fixed stain on a static shore) or "drift line" (any washed-up accumulation), a tideline is a mobile frontier drawn by moving water upon itself. It is a sinuous raft of foam and withered kelp tracing the water's memory of its own high reach; the sudden corridor where river meets sea, collecting twigs and petals; the temporary necklace of plastic bottles left by the falling tide—a floating museum of the misplaced, mapping a boundary that is both precise and utterly ephemeral.
Etymology
From tide + line.
noun
- A line of floating debris, seaweed etc. that marks the boundary between two surface currents.“And last year, at 5:26 a.m. on August 10, a whole mountainside toppled into the tideline of the shrunken Sawyer Glacier, not far from the Alaskan capital, Juneau. The impact jetted a tsunami a staggering 500 meters up the walls of the fjord.”