moray
noun
any of numerous chiefly tropical eels of the family Muraenidae, having porelike gill openings and no pectoral fins.
moray
1 American
[mawr-ey, mohr-ey, maw-rey, moh-]
/ ˈmɔr eɪ, ˈmoʊr eɪ, mɔˈreɪ, moʊ- /
noun
-
morays
plural
Moray
2
American
[mur-ee]
/ ˈmɜr i /
noun
Moray
1
British
/ ˈmʌrɪ /
noun
Moray
2
British
/ ˈmʌrɪ /
noun
moray
3
British
/ mɒˈreɪ /
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of moray
1615–25, < Portuguese moréia < Latin mūraena < Greek mȳ́raina lamprey
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
After weeks of patience, last year's winner, Shane Gross, captured peppered moray eels scavenging for carrion at low tide.
From BBC ● Oct. 14, 2025
“It’s giving me nightmares,” wrote a Reddit user on Saturday, posting a picture of what appeared to be a dead moray eel on the beach.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 17, 2024
Scientists exploring underwater caves have discovered a new species of moray eel that appears to be adapting to its unique habitat—by losing its eyes.
From Science Magazine ● May 18, 2023
A green moray eel poked out of the rocks, and a barracuda hunted overhead.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 9, 2022
Some time later, I made an informed guess that it had been a large moray eel.
From "The Cay" by Theodore Taylor
Kim Hutchison, 60, and Harry Grieve, 57, from Buckie, Moray, were staying in a Travelodge in Dundee when the early morning incident happened last month.
From BBC ● Aug. 4, 2026
To cope with the funding shortfalls, every local authority in Scotland has increased council tax - ranging from 4% in Edinburgh to 10% in Aberdeenshire and Moray.
From BBC ● Jun. 11, 2026
Moray representative Laura Mitchell was among those to use a prop during the ceremony.
From BBC ● May 14, 2026
Meanwhile, another star of the new film, Kevin McKidd - best known for roles in Trainspotting and Grey's Anatomy - was born in Elgin, Moray.
From BBC ● May 1, 2026
In another stand the old houses of the Earls of Gosford and Moray.
From The Genius of Scotland or Sketches of Scottish Scenery, Literature and Religion by Turnbull, Robert
The researchers used baited traps to lure the morays to the surface of inland caves that connect to the ocean on Australia’s Christmas Island and the Philippines’s Panglao Island.
From Science Magazine ● May 18, 2023
We hope you can still manage a smile, even as our societal morays crumble.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 28, 2022
That, to me, is trying to impose contemporary morays onto history.
From Slate ● Apr. 21, 2020
More impressively, researchers in the Red Sea in 2002 and 2004 watched groupers and morays hunting cooperatively on numerous occasions.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 30, 2018
At that moment another man came up, evidently in something of a hurry, and he pressed eagerly forward to look at the morays.
From Two Boys of the Battleship or For the Honor of Uncle Sam by Webster, Frank V.
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.
