From Scottish brack (from Middle Dutch brac (“brackish”)) +‎ -ish. Cognate with Dutch brak (“brackish”), German Low German brack, brakerg, brakig (“brackish”), German brackig (“brackish”), Danish brak (“brackish”), Swedish bräck (“brackish”), Norwegian brakk (“brackish”). Perhaps a distant doublet of brook.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbɹækɪʃ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ækɪʃ

brackish (comparative more brackish, superlative most brackish)

1. (of water) Salty or slightly salty, as a mixture of fresh and sea water, such as that found in estuaries.
   • 1638, Sir Thomas Herbert, Some years travels into divers parts of Asia and Afrique:

     ...by a low courſe and too long ſporting with the briny Ocean it taſts brackiſh and inſalubrious...

   • 1992, Joyce Carol Oates, Black Water, Penguin Books, paperback edition, page 4.

     On all sides a powerful brackish marshland odor, the odor of damp, and decay, and black earth, black water.

   • 2004, David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, Random House.

     The water we took on at Chatham Isle is now brackish & without a dash of brandy in it, my stomach rebels.

   • 2026 January 13, Ryan Geller, “A homeless Vallejo resident owns the city’s largest encampment. Now he’s pressured to evict his neighbors”, in Vallejo Sun‎^[1], archived from the original on 15 January 2026:

     White Slough is a large tidal wetland full of brackish water from the Napa River that flows into the city of Vallejo from under Highway 37.

2. Distasteful; unpleasant; not appealing to the taste.
   • 1881, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Poems. A New Edition, F.S. Ellis:

     Therefore the bread he had to eat
     Seemed brackish, less like corn than tares;

3. Repulsive (Can we add an example for this sense?)