slack tide
1
7.0
- noun
- /slæk taɪd/
- Specialized
:
marea muerta
- The fisherman waited patiently for slack tide, knowing it was the best time to cast his nets.
Examples
-
That meant the slack tide would begin around 8 A.M. and last for a few hours.
Fiction book (1992) -
During slack tide, the water in the harbor was calm and perfect for kayaking.
-
Knowing that slack tide would arrive soon, the sailors prepared to navigate the tricky currents.
Synonyms
1
8.0
A stretch of water where the current is slow or still
1
7.9
A time when a tidal river or sea is nearly still as the tide turns
How Fast
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from 'slack' (lack of movement, slack/slow current) combined with 'tide' (periodic sea-level/current change) — i.e. a tide with little or no current. This straightforward adjective+noun composition is a common descriptive pattern and would be understandable to a B1 learner who knows both constituent words.
Etymology
Slack tide comes from the simple image of the sea standing still: slack means calm or loose and tide is the sea's rise and fall. Fishermen and sailors used the phrase for the short time when the current stops as the tide turns, so today it means 'the period when the water is relatively still'.