Ait

An ait is characteristically long and narrow, and may become a permanent island should it become secured and protected by growing vegetation.

[4][1] Although not common in 21st-century English, "ait" or "eyot" appears in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Charles Dickens's Bleak House,[4] and Thackeray's Vanity Fair.

River whirling along so fast that its skin was pulled into wrinkles like silk dragged over the floor.

[citation needed] More recently, "eyot" was used by Terry Pratchett in the first of the Discworld books, The Colour of Magic.

[citation needed] In 1995, William Horwood (novelist) used it in Toad Triumphant, written in the style of and one of his sequels to the 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.

Brentford Ait on the River Thames
Bush Ait on the River Thames in Berkshire. Growing trees and other plants have secured the material that makes up the ait, protecting it from erosion.