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Merrimack River

Merrimack River

1 4.6
A river in New Hampshire and Massachusetts that flows into the Atlantic Ocean
  • proper noun
  • /ˈmɛrɪˌmæk ˈrɪvər/
translation icon : río Merrimack
  • Newburyport -- After two days of intensive efforts, the search for a German man who presumably drowned in the Merrimack River Thursday night has been called off, according to rescue officials.

Examples

  • A Coast Guard helicopter searched the Merrimack River near Cashman Park yesterday.

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  • After selling the motor home and buying the sailboat, Decker lived on the boat, which was actually moored at Crowley's mooring on the Salisbury side of the Merrimack River.

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  • A Coast Guard helicopter and rescue boat searched the Merrimack River near Cashman Park yesterday.

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  • A sailboat sits in the Merrimack River yesterday near Cashman Park where a man is believed to have fallen in.

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  • A Coast Guard rescue boat searched the Merrimack River yesterday near Cashman Park in Newburyport for a man who is believed to have fallen off his boat.

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  • Romney didn't give a damn about the Merrimack River flooding when he was Governor—until the part that was in New Hampshire started backing up.

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  • NEWBURYPORT -- Coast Guard, state, and local emergency officials congregated at Cashman Park yesterday afternoon, hoping against hope to find boater Richard Decker, believed to have fallen in the Merrimack River sometime Thursday night.

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  • A Coast Guard helicopter searched the Merrimack River near Cashman Park yesterday.

  • Swimmers can take a dip in the Merrimack River in Lowell, Mass.

  • Every year, the eagles nested in several places along the broad Merrimack River, a major comeback from their former status as an endangered species.

Synonyms

Merrimack
vsMerrimack River
6 7.4

A river in New England that starts in southern New Hampshire and flows through Massachusetts into the Atlantic

rises in central New Hampshire before flowing through Massachusetts to the ocean

Surface Forms

Morphology

Merrimack + river

This is directly compositional: 'Merrimack' is a place/name and 'river' denotes a watercourse, so together they denote the river called Merrimack. The proper-name + river naming pattern is cross-linguistically common and follows a standard semantic combination that a B1 learner who knows both constituents can infer.

Etymology

Merrimack River may come from an old Native American word meaning 'place of strong current' or 'deep place'. People would use that word to describe a river with fast, powerful water, so the name stuck and now labels the river we know today.