kettle hole
1
8.5
- noun
- /ˈkɛtəl hoʊl/
- UK
:
hoyo de caldera
- The glacier left Chilmark a roly-poly landscape full of kettle holes, drumlins, and clay and rock.
Examples
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After the glacier melted, the landscape was dotted with numerous kettle holes filled with clear water.
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The children enjoyed splashing in the water that had collected in the kettle hole after the rain.
-
We discovered a beautiful kettle hole during our hike, where some animals came to drink.
Synonyms
9
2.4
A low place in the ground where animals drink water
5
8.8
A hole in the ground left by melting ice that often fills with water to form a lake
4
1.7
A natural pool where wild animals go to drink water
How Deep
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and transparently derived from combining 'kettle' (a depression often filled with water after ice melts) with 'hole' (an opening or depression); the compound labels that specific kind of depression. This straightforward noun–noun composition follows common English compounding patterns and would be understandable to a B1 learner who knows both constituent meanings.
Etymology
Kettle hole may come from the Ice Age. Big blocks of ice sat in soft ground and later melted, leaving round pits that often filled with water. Those pits looked like a deep kettle, a 'cooking pot', so people called them kettle holes, and today the name means a water-filled 'hollow' in the ground.