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• Loch Ness monster
  Loch Ness monster

  noun

  a large aquatic animal resembling a serpent or a plesiosaurlike reptile, reported to have been seen in the waters of Loch Ness, Scotland, but not proved to exist.
• Loch Ness Monster
  Loch Ness Monster

  A gigantic, humped, dragonlike creature thought to inhabit the icy depths of Loch Ness, a lake in north-central Scotland. Periodic sightings of “Nessie” have been alleged since the early 1930s (though the legend of such a creature dates to the seventh century), but the monster remains elusive.

Loch Ness monster

American  

noun

1. a large aquatic animal resembling a serpent or a plesiosaurlike reptile, reported to have been seen in the waters of Loch Ness, Scotland, but not proved to exist.

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Loch Ness Monster Cultural  

1. A gigantic, humped, dragonlike creature thought to inhabit the icy depths of Loch Ness, a lake in north-central Scotland. Periodic sightings of “Nessie” have been alleged since the early 1930s (though the legend of such a creature dates to the seventh century), but the monster remains elusive.

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Etymology

Origin of Loch Ness monster

First recorded in 1930–35

Example Sentences

As an X-file from an earlier era, when fringe theories about UFOs, crop circles or the Loch Ness monster were quarantined as tabloid fodder, the lore around the wilderness footage seems quaint by today’s standards.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 12, 2026

This is not a search for the Loch Ness monster.

From Seattle Times • Nov. 18, 2023

The mystery of the fabled Loch Ness monster endures despite a weekend of mass-participation Nessie hunting.

From BBC • Aug. 27, 2023

“Right now, it’s like finding a fossil with a long neck and making inferences that confuse a giraffe with the Loch Ness monster, because we don’t have enough information,” Dr. Rougier said.

From New York Times • Jul. 16, 2023

Because they became obsessed with the idea that it was the Loch Ness monster that’d done it.”

From "The Wrong Way Home" by Kate O’Shaughnessy