embranchment

[ em-branch-muhnt, -brahnch- ]

noun

1. a branching or ramification.
2. a branch.

embranchment

/ ɪmˈbrɑːntʃmənt /

noun

1. the process of branching out, esp by a river
2. a branching out or ramification, as of a river or mountain range

Word History and Origins

Origin of embranchment¹

1820–30; < French embranchement, equivalent to em- em- ¹ + branche branch + -ment -ment

Example Sentences

Embranchment, em-bransh′ment, n. a branching off, as an arm of a river, a spur of a mountain, &c.

From Project Gutenberg

In the large estuary of the Shubenacadie, which connects with another estuary called the Basin of Mines, itself an embranchment of the Bay of Fundy, a vast body of water comes rushing up, with a roaring noise, into a long narrow channel, and while it is ascending, has all the appearance of pouring down a slope as steep as that of the celebrated rapids of the St. Lawrence.

From Project Gutenberg

There was no crust of stalagmite overlying the mud in which the human skeleton was found, and no bones of other animals in the mud with the skeleton; but just before our visit in 1860 the tusk of a bear had been met with in some mud in a lateral embranchment of the cave, in a situation precisely similar to b, Figure 1, and on a level corresponding with that of the human skeleton.

From Project Gutenberg