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  1. pelagic love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Of, relating to, or living in open oceans or seas rather than waters adjacent to land or inland waters: pelagic birds.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. Marine; oceanic; of or inhabiting the deep or open sea: said of those aquatic plants and animals which inhabit the high seas. Also Pelagian.
  2. Specifically, in marine biol.: Living at the surface of the high sea at a distance from land.
  3. Living at the surface of the sea. See the extract.
  4. Living at the surface of the water, either salt or fresh.
  5. Floating or swimming in the water, either at the surface or at any depth below it.
  6. In geology and geography, of or pertaining to the deep ocean; far from land.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. biology Living in the open sea rather than in coastal or inland waters.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. Of or pertaining to the ocean; -- applied especially to animals that live at the surface of the ocean, away from the coast. Compare benthic.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. relating to or occurring or living in or frequenting the open ocean

Etymologies

  1. From Latin pelagicus (and possibly pelagus); from Ancient Greek πελαγικός (pelagikós), from πέλαγος (pélagos, "sea"). (Wiktionary)
  2. Latin pelagicus, from Greek pelagikos, from pelagos, sea; see plāk-1 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “Marine biodiversity has been particularly threatened by the uncontrolled illegal fishing by large ships owned by mainland or Asiatic fishing companies in pelagic zones, often inside the Marine Reserve, using high technology methods such as long-lining.”

    Galápagos National Park & Galápagos Marine Resources Reserve, Ecuador

  • “Fail to use an approved "pelagic" system for weighing herring, mackerel and horse mackerel.”

    Archive 2008-09-01

  • “Whale sharks are pelagic, meaning they roam the open sea, and can only be seen along the coast during seasonal feeding aggregations.”

    Close Encounter with a Whale Shark

  • “Every kind of pelagic gamefish cruises in this warm, blue flow.”

    Summer at Sea

  • “We did a good deal of "pelagic" sealing; that is, catching seals swimming.”

    The Cruise of the Cachalot Round the World After Sperm Whales

  • “A "pelagic", or open-ocean, shark - so attacks in coastal waters are exceedingly rare”

    BBC News - Home

  • “The total number of false killer whales in Hawaiian waters, including both the insular population and a "pelagic" population that also interacts with longlines, is estimated at only about 600.”

    Earthjustice Press Releases

  • “And in South America, the concern is that climate change will alter coastal upwellings, which sustain huge catches of anchovies, sardines and other varieties of small "pelagic" fish.”

    KI Media

  • “In northern South America, the concern is that climate change will alter coastal upwellings, which sustain huge catches of anchovies, sardines and other varieties of small, "pelagic" fish.”

    YubaNet.com

  • “Guillemots are pelagic, meaning they spend most of their lives at sea, coming ashore only to breed, yet they rarely venture far from shore.”

    Knox

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antonyms (1)

Words with the opposite meaning

  1. benthic

same context (20)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. big-game
  2. minuter
  3. fur seal
  4. KN
  1. all-female
  2. widely-diffused
  3. fourfooted
  4. nonnative
  1. marsupial
  2. pyroclastic
  3. fur-bearing
  4. skyey
  1. fresh-water
  2. tunny
  3. deep-sea
  4. ichthyological
  1. deep-water
  2. air-breathing
  3. arboreal
  4. infect

rhymes (3)

Words with the same terminal sound

  1. Magic
  1. magic
  1. tragic

reverse dictionary (82)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. petrel
  2. potamoplankton
  3. pelagian
  4. manta ray
  5. heteropoda
  6. epiplanktonic
  7. jakutian
  8. longobardian
  9. luvaro
  10. noctilucence
  11. pelagial
  12. pteraclidæ
  13. pteraclis
  14. saury
  15. sevatian
  16. zeinæ
  1. maricolous
  2. pelagonemertidæ
  3. sea-bird
  4. autopelagic
  5. blue shark
  6. aureliidæ
  7. bregmaceros
  8. dictyocysta
  9. pelagic
  10. thrasher
  11. thresher
  12. thresher shark
  13. thunnus alalunga
  14. pilotfish
  15. pomfret
  16. prionace glauca
  1. rachycentridae
  2. sailfish
  3. spearfish
  4. sunfish
  5. family coryphaenidae
  6. family rachycentridae
  7. fox shark
  8. great blue shark
  9. headfish
  10. long-fin tunny
  11. mackerel shark
  12. manta
  13. mola
  14. naucrates ductor
  15. ocean sunfish
  16. albacore
  1. alopius vulpinus
  2. appendicularia
  3. brama raii
  4. coryphaenidae
  5. devilfish
  6. mollemoke
  7. Siphonophora
  8. aurelia
  9. bonito
  10. catallactidæ
  11. eagle
  12. euchitoniidæ
  13. fish
  14. globigerinidæ
  15. gony
  16. marine
  1. natantia
  2. oceanic
  3. pelagiidæ
  4. pilot-fish
  5. procellariidæ
  6. bathypelagic
  7. epiplankton
  8. flowering
  9. Julian
  10. koniéprusian
  11. limnetic
  12. meroplanktonic
  13. mnestra
  14. spanipelagic
  15. tentaculites
  16. tirolian
  1. tuvalian
  2. thalassic

tags (1)

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  1. bird

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  • heypacksees Beyond the littoral, above the benthic. The open sea. Nov 21, 2011

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‘pelagic’ has been looked up 2971 times, loved by 4 people, added to 67 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 12.