My friends and I were playing a game recently in which, for each round, four of the players were given a word of which they each had to give a rough description to the fifth player. The guessing player would gain a point if they got the word correct.
It came to my turn to be the guesser and the descriptions my friends gave for the word were as follows:
Alan: It's a square with a pair of strips passing through it.
Brenda: I would say it's more like a repeating square wave but one that is crashing.
Catherine: I wouldn't say it's the waves themselves but it's what's just above, close to land.
Daniel: I would say they are more like ridges than waves, sometimes interspersed with dots.
Their descriptions seemed completely disparate and I couldn't make sense of them, which worried me quite a bit.
What word were my friends describing?
Please explain each description in your answer.
Hint (in light of Tom's excellent answer)
Once the word had been revealed to me, I realised it could also mean something into which I had just gotten myself.