shallowing

Pluralshallowings

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The process by which a body of water, channel, or similar feature becomes progressively less deep.

   Sediment deposition led to a gradual shallowing of the harbor channel.

   Geologists traced the shallowing of the basin through successive sedimentary layers.

   Oppositedeepening

   Note

   Geographers use the word for a place as well as a process. In the Scottish Geographical Magazine of 1907, "very slight shallowings" are low rises that separate the deeper hollows of a basin. Used that way, it is countable and takes a plural. Tim Flannery's Europe: A Natural History (2018) uses the process sense at the scale of whole oceans, where a shallowing seabed pushes the seas onto the continents.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of shallow.

   The channel was shallowing rapidly during the dry season.

   Sediment settled as the lagoon kept shallowing year after year.

   Note

   The -ing form works both ways because the verb behind it does: a channel can be shallowing on its own, or silt can be shallowing the channel. Only the physical meaning, "less deep," carries over to the verb. The figurative senses of "superficial" stay with the adjective shallow. As a noun with a plural, the same spelling becomes the process of growing shallower.

   Silt washed down from the hills is shallowing the harbor.

   Once the dredging stopped, the bay began shallowing again.

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