Also sadd. [Arab. sudd, n. of action to sudd to obstruct.] An impenetrable mass of floating vegetable matter which obstructs navigation on the White Nile.
1874. Baker, Ismailïa, II. xiii. 488. To remove the sudd or obstruction to the navigation of the great White Nile.
1881. Proc. R. Geog. Soc. (N. S.), III. 301. A survey of the Nile, from the Sobat upwards, to the obstructive sudd in the Bahr el Gebel.
1898. Nat. Rev., Aug., 796. The gunboat’s business after Fashoda will be to cut through the sudd and reach Beden as soon as possible.
b. transf. A temporary dam constructed across a river.
c. 1900. Sir B. Baker, in Daily Chron., 10 Dec., 9/2. The method of working was to erect temporary dams or ‘sudds,’ formed of various materials.
1903. Sci. Amer., 28 Feb., 152/2. To inclose the area, upon which it was intended to work during the season, by temporary dams or ‘sadds’ in November.
c. attrib. and Comb.
1900. Westm. Gaz., 10 July, 2/1. The ‘sudd’ regions of the White Nile.
1900. Daily News, 14 July, 4/5. Major Peake’s sudd-cutting party.
1911. Chambers’s Jrnl., 28 Jan., 142/1. A factory is to be established in the sudd-country for the production of briquetted water-weed on an extensive scale.
Hence Sudded ppl. a., obstructed by sudd.
1900. Westm. Gaz., 10 July, 2/2. In 1898 Lord Kitchener found the Gebel River sudded.
