Meaning & use
polder
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountable
A low area of land taken from a lake, sea, or marsh and kept dry by walls, pumps, or ditches.
Grammar: A polder is a piece of land, so you can say a polder or the polders.
Patterns
- a polder in the Netherlands
- drain a polder
- reclaim land as a polder
The village sits on a polder that was once part of the sea.
Farmers in the polder depend on pumps to keep the fields dry.
Engineers built a strong dike around the new polder.
Word forms
| plural | polders |
|---|
Common combinations
- polder landscape
- The polder landscape is flat and crossed by narrow canals.
- polder model
- The polder model refers to cooperation between groups in Dutch politics.
- reclaimed polder
- The reclaimed polder now supports dairy farming.
- polder dike
- A polder dike protects the low land from flooding.
Synonyms and how they differ
- reclamation
- Reclamation is the process of making land usable, not the land itself; a polder is the resulting area.
- marshland
- Marshland is naturally wet, soft ground; a polder has been drained and is kept dry by human control.
Word family
- polderization noun
- The process of creating polders or managing land in that way.
Commonly confused: polder or polder?
polder vs polder
Do not confuse polder with polar, which relates to the North or South Pole.
Practice
Which sentence uses polder correctly?
Choose one answer.
A polder is low land reclaimed from water and kept dry by human-made systems. Option 0 describes a reservoir, option 1 describes a landform, and option 3 describes an anemometer.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “polder”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.