sargasso
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of sargasso
1590–1600; < Portuguese, perhaps special use of sargaço rockrose < Latin salicastrum, equivalent to salic- (stem of salix ) willow + -astrum, neuter of -aster -aster 1
Explanation
Use the noun sargasso when you're talking about a particular kind of seaweed that's mostly found in the Atlantic Ocean, including the region known as the Sargasso Sea. Most folks are more familiar with the place than the name for it; sargasso is a kind of brown seaweed that floats in huge masses, sometimes so dense that you'd think you could walk on it (though this is not recommended). The alternative name, gulfweed, is a nod towards the Gulf of Mexico, home to quite a lot of sargasso.
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.
He looks ahead at some floating sargasso weed, where some flying fishes are skittering through the air.
From Time Magazine Archive
The manatee, or sea-cow, frequents the mouths of rivers, the sargasso drifts, and the regions of submarine fresh-water springs off the coast.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 7 "Crocoite" to "Cuba" by Various
It was like a sargasso, inside of us, an emptiness which needed filling—but we were wrong.
From The Graveyard of Space by Marlowe, Stephen
In slow and ponderous fashion they float across the sea of his mind, like wandering bits of sargasso weed on the brackish water of a dying ocean.
From Life Sentence by Francis, Dick
The other half was this: with a better radarscope a ship might not have floundered into the sargasso at all....
From The Graveyard of Space by Marlowe, Stephen
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.
