Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
Salton Sea

Salton Sea

1 6.1
A large shallow salty lake in southeastern California formed by an accidental flood and fed by water from farms
  • proper noun
  • /ˈsɔltən si/
translation icon : Salton Sea
  • After my day-long shoot at the Salton Sea, that night I started working on some of my images from the day.
  • Salton Sea State Park
  • shore of the Salton Sea
  • Salton Sea, California

Examples

  • We'd stopped for gas at the Salton Sea.

    The Salton Sea (2002)

  • The Yuma clapper rail lives in wetlands along the lower Colorado River, in the Colorado River delta, along the west coast of Mexico, and around the Salton Sea in California.

    Academic text (2005)

  • You can see the Salton Sea from up there?

    Into the Wild (2007)

  • From the top, you can see all the way to the Salton Sea, too.

    Into the Wild (2007)

  • Went to Salvation Mountain, went to Slab City, went to the Salton Sea together.

  • AQMD will collect air samples this evening in several locations throughout the Coachella Valley and at the Salton Sea.

    Blog text (29)

  • Air quality officials are continuing to investigate the source of a rotten-egg odor reported last night and today across much of Southern California, from the Salton Sea to the San Fernando Valley.

    Blog text (29)

  • "Several factors indicate that the Salton Sea may have been the source of these odors," said Barry Wallerstein, executive officer for the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD).

    Blog text (29)

  • The Salton Sea is a unique body of water in California, attracting many tourists each year.

  • Birds flock to the Salton Sea, making it a popular spot for birdwatching enthusiasts.

Synonyms

salina
vsSalton Sea
  • Specialized
8.4

A natural low area like a salt lake where water dries and leaves salt

is a specific large shallow saline lake formed by flooding and kept by runoff

Surface Forms

Salton Sea main

Morphology

Salton + sea

While 'sea' transparently denotes a body of saltwater, 'Salton' is a proper name with no independent lexical meaning for learners; knowing the constituents would let a B1 infer it refers to a sea but not that it denotes a specific saline lake formed by accidental flooding and maintained by runoff. Proper nouns are arbitrary and do not provide the compositional information needed to derive the MWE's full meaning, so the expression is not predictable from its parts.

Etymology

The Salton Sea was created in the early 1900s when people accidentally let a river flood a low desert area and fill it with salty water. Later, farm water kept that lake from drying up, so the water stayed. That's why the name now refers to the large, shallow salt lake in southern California.