A cnidarian in its free-swimming stage. Medusas are bell-shaped, with tentacles hanging down around a central mouth. Jellyfish are medusas, while corals and sea anemones lack a medusa stage and exist only as polyps.
Compare polyp
1750–60; special use of Medusa, alluding to the Gorgon's snaky locks
< Latin < Greek Médousa, special use of médousa, feminine of médōn ruling
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
A jellyfish begins its life cycle as an anemone-like creature on the sea floor before undergoing a metamorphosis and sprouting into a recognizable medusa — that Pacman ghost shape we're all familiar with.
From Salon ● Aug. 2, 2023
Gradually, the medusa buds off the polyp once again, rejuvenated.
From New York Times ● Sep. 6, 2022
Scientists prefer the term jelly or medusa over jellyfish because the creatures are not fish.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 25, 2022
A black floor-length gown with undulating straps could have been a poisonous medusa, with coral-red dye bleeding down its multi-layered skirt.
From Washington Times ● Jan. 20, 2020
Then they have taken the form of a medusa.
From "The Thing About Jellyfish" by Ali Benjamin
Its bronze door bears a Medusa head, her open mouth turned into a letter slot.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 30, 2026
Looking at Medusa, the hideous woman with snakes for hair, might turn the viewer to stone, but there’s power in offending the eye—or at least rejecting the pressure to be decorative.
From Slate ● Oct. 28, 2024
For centuries, the Greek Gorgon Medusa has been cast as a vicious monster, a beastly woman with writhing snakes for hair and a deadly gaze that turns living creatures to stone.
From New York Times ● May 25, 2024
Several people are believed to be trapped at the site of the Medusa Beach Club, a beachside restaurant on Cartago Street in Palma de Majorca.
From BBC ● May 23, 2024
“I thought Medusa had looked at you, and that you were turning to stone. Perhaps now you will ask how much you are worth?”
From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë
Wearing a toadstool headdress and a skirt embellished with Medusas, El Beh has one of the most striking looks — though the orange ram’s horns on Trebien Pollard are quite something, too.
From New York Times ● Jan. 23, 2022
Medusas are the successors of Bruitparif’s first-generation sensors, called Sonopodes, which rely on expensive components imported from Japan.
From The New Yorker ● May 6, 2019
The band's final two songs are I Am The King and Medusas "which sounds like it's a Greek myth but is actually about jelly fish".
From BBC ● Feb. 28, 2019
He wielded his clinical obligation like Perseus’s shield, in which a cavalcade of Medusas lost their stony power.
From The Guardian ● Sep. 4, 2015
I followed the hissing and spitting sounds of Medusas hair.
From "The Lightning Thief" by Rick Riordan
“I was able to actually collect some of those medusae last year during the bloom, but rearing gelatinous organisms is pretty difficult,” Stajner said.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 3, 2024
Although beached by-the-wind sailors die in great numbers, they most probably have already reproduced and left thousands of medusae in the sea, according to Wagner.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 29, 2024
Before they adhere to the ocean’s surface, they live underwater as tiny creatures known as medusae, Wagner said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 29, 2024
It was just when we had been having a very interesting conversation upon the medusae, especially those of a phosphorescent nature.
From The Ocean Cat's Paw The Story of a Strange Cruise by Stacey, W. S. (Walter S.)
It indeed appeared as if the acalephae diminished and the medusae increased in number after passing the 36th degree of south latitude.
From Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2 by Grey, George
The blue seafaring colonies are themselves asexual, though they bud off tiny transparent medusas that are thought to go to the deep sea and reproduce sexually there, Stajner said.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 3, 2024
Vivid hues that evoked the sea beds and headwear that resembled medusas continued the theme.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 1, 2022
But not all marine lakes have medusas, the bell-shape organisms you probably think of when the word "jellyfish" comes to mind.
From National Geographic ● Feb. 28, 2018
There is menace, too, in the sea, which is teeming with nasty stinging jellyfish known as medusas.
From New York Times ● Jul. 10, 2016
We observed during the night, that, of three species of medusas which we collected, none yielded any light but at the moment of a very slight shock.
From Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Year 1799-1804 — Volume 1 by Ross, Thomasina
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
