Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The continuous body of salt water covering most of the earth's surface, especially this body regarded as a geophysical entity distinct from earth and sky.
  • noun A tract of water within an ocean.
  • noun A relatively large body of salt water completely or partially enclosed by land.
  • noun A relatively large landlocked body of fresh water.
  • noun The condition of the ocean's surface with regard to its course, flow, swell, or turbulence.
  • noun A wave or swell, especially a large one.
  • noun Something that suggests the ocean in its overwhelming sweep or vastness.
  • noun Seafaring as a way of life.
  • noun Astronomy A lunar mare.
  • idiom (at sea) On the sea, especially on a sea voyage.
  • idiom (at sea) In a state of confusion or perplexity; at a loss.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An obsolete spelling of see.
  • noun The salt waters that cover the greater part of the earth's surface; the ocean.
  • noun A great body of salt water; a more or less distinctly limited or landlocked part of the ocean having considerable dimensions.
  • noun Any widely extended or overwhelming mass or quantity; an ocean; a flood: as, a sea of difficulties; a sea of upturned faces.
  • noun The swell of the ocean, or the direction of the waves: as, there was a heavy sea on; to keep the boat's head to the sea.
  • noun A large wave; a billow; a surge: as, to ship a sea.
  • noun Out on the ocean, and out of sight of land; hence, in the condition of a mariner who has lost his bearings; in a state of uncertainty or error; astray; wide of the mark; quite wrong: as, you are altogether at sea in your guesses.
  • noun By the margin of the sea; on the sea-coast.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun One of the larger bodies of salt water, less than an ocean, found on the earth's surface; a body of salt water of second rank, generally forming part of, or connecting with, an ocean or a larger sea.
  • noun An inland body of water, esp. if large or if salt or brackish; ; sometimes, a small fresh-water lake.
  • noun The ocean; the whole body of the salt water which covers a large part of the globe.
  • noun The swell of the ocean or other body of water in a high wind; motion or agitation of the water's surface; also, a single wave; a billow.
  • noun (Jewish Antiq.) A great brazen laver in the temple at Jerusalem; -- so called from its size.
  • noun Fig.: Anything resembling the sea in vastness.
  • noun upon the ocean; away from land; figuratively, without landmarks for guidance; lost; at the mercy of circumstances.
  • noun at the height of flood tide; hence, at the height.
  • noun (Law) out of the state, territory, realm, or country.
  • noun [Colloq.] half drunk.
  • noun a sea in which the waves run high.
  • noun a sea characterized by the uniform and steady motion of long and extensive waves.
  • noun a sea in which the waves are short, broken, and irregular, so as to produce a tumbling or jerking motion.
  • noun to adopt the calling or occupation of a sailor.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A large body of salty water. (Major seas are known as oceans.)
  • noun figuratively A large number or quantity; a vast amount.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun anything apparently limitless in quantity or volume
  • noun turbulent water with swells of considerable size
  • noun a division of an ocean or a large body of salt water partially enclosed by land

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English see, from Old English .]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English see, from Old English  ("sea, lake"), from Proto-Germanic *saiwiz (compare West Frisian see, Dutch zee, German See), probably from Proto-Indo-European *sh₂ei-u̯o- 'to be fierce, afflict' (compare Latin saevus ("wild, fierce"), Tocharian saiwe ("itch"), Latvian sievs, sīvs ("sharp, biting")). More to sore.

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Examples

  • She spends hours and hours on the terrace overlooking the sea (her great desire, she confided to me, is to get to the sea -- to get _back to the sea_, as she expressed it), and lying in the garden, under the big myrtle-bushes, and, in spring and summer, under the rose-hedge.

    Hauntings Vernon Lee 1895

  • Comfort, -- and extending "up into the land throughout _from sea to sea_, west and northwest."

    A School History of the United States John Bach McMaster 1892

  • Eels kept in a garden, when August arrived (the period at which instinct impels them to go to the sea to spawn) were in the habit of leaving the pond, and were invariably found moving eastward _in the direction of the sea_.

    Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon James Emerson Tennent 1836

  • Eels kept in a garden, when August arrived (the period at which instinct impels them to go to the sea to spawn) were in the habit of leaving the pond and were invariably found moving eastward _in the direction of the sea_.

    Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and Topographical with Notices of Its Natural History, Antiquities and Productions, Volume 1 (of 2) James Emerson Tennent 1836

  • [49]: The purple die is called in I Maccab.iv. 23, _purple of the sea, _ or _sea purple_; it being the blood or juice of a turbinated shell-fish, which the Jews call [Hebrew] _Chalson_; this they speak of as a shell-fish.

    Female Scripture Biographies, Volume II Francis Augustus Cox 1818

  • Mediterranean coast, and looked upon a sea from _that land_ which I had often, with longing eyes, viewed _from the sea_, in the year 1745, when

    A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 Volume 1 (of 2) Philip Thicknesse 1755

  • I. ii.155 (14,6) [deck'd the sea] _To deck the sea_, if explained, to honour, adorn, or dignify, is indeed ridiculous, but the original import of the verb _deck_ is, _to cover_; so in some parts they yet say _deck the table_.

    Notes to Shakespeare — Volume 01: Comedies Samuel Johnson 1746

  • Apostles on the sea of _Tiberias_ in a storm so great, that the ship was covered with water and in danger of sinking, till _Christ rebuked the winds and the sea_, Matth. viii.

    Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John Isaac Newton 1684

  • "Like blockades might be proclaimed by any particular nation, enabled by its naval superiority to distribute its ships at the mouth of that or any similar sea, _or across channels or arms of the sea_, so as to make it dangerous for the commerce of other nations to pass to its destination.

    Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 Volume 1 1877

  • The house, the seaplanet outside it, and how the word alone referred to her and to the house and how the word sea reinforced the idea of solitude but suggested a vigorous release as well, a means of escape from the book-walled limits of the self.

    THE BODY ARTIST DON DELILLO 2001

  • This May a thick layer of marine mucilage, popularly known as sea snot, started to take over Marmara.

    An ode to Marmara 2023

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