anabranching

A1N1A1B3R1A1N1C3H4I1N1G2

adjective

Splitting around mid-channel islands that are roughly three times the width of the channel at full discharge.

Scrabble 20

Meanings

adjectiveanabranching (not comparable)
  1. not comparablegeographySplitting around mid-channel islands that are roughly three times the width of the channel at full discharge.

    In particular, logjams blocked channels and led to the formation of side channels and floodplain sloughs, producing multiple anabranching channels and riverine wetlands that are in stark contrast to the large, single channels that exist in these streams today.

    2008 January 18, Robert C. Walter, Dorothy J. Merritts, “Natural Streams and the Legacy of Water-Powered Mills”, in Science, 319(5861), page 299
    1 more example

    Work on anabranching channels has been restricted mainly to the alluvial plains of the Murray and the Murrumbidgee, where the anabranches -- offshoots -- rejoin the original trunk or unite with a next-neighbouring trunk, sometimes after a distance of tens of miles.

    1969, Richard J. Chorley with Roger Graham Barry, Water, Earth, and Man, page 425

Origin

  1. Proto-Indo-European*h₂en-
  2. Proto-Hellenic*aná
  3. Ancient Greekᾰ̓νᾰ́ (ănắ)
  4. Ancient Greekᾰ̓νᾰ- (ănă-)
  5. Englishana-
  6. Englishbranching
  7. Englishanabranching

From ana- + branching.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

anabranching. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/anabranching

MLA

“anabranching.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/anabranching. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “anabranching,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/anabranching.

Source: anabranching on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.