sea

See also: SEA, Sea, seâ, Sẽa, and șea

Translingual

Etymology

Most likely from English Semai

Symbol

sea

  1. (international standards) ISO 639-3 language code for Semai.

English

The sea.

Etymology

From Middle English see, from Old English (sea), from Proto-West Germanic *saiwi, from Proto-Germanic *saiwiz (compare West Frisian see, Dutch zee, German See, Danish , Norwegian Bokmål sjø, Swedish sjö), probably either from Proto-Indo-European *sh₂ey-wo- (to be fierce, afflict) (compare Latin saevus (wild, fierce), Tocharian B saiwe (itch), Latvian sievs, sīvs (sharp, biting); more at sore)[1] or derived from *sīhwaną (to percolate, filter), in which case *saiwiz is from earlier *saigwiz, Pre-Germanic *soykʷ-ís.[2]

Pronunciation

  • enPR: , IPA(key): /siː/
  • (file)
  • (file)
  • (file)
  • (obsolete) enPR: , IPA(key): /seɪ/
  • Homophones: C, cee, see
  • Rhymes: -iː

Noun

sea (plural seas)

  1. A large body of salt water.
    Synonym: (UK, nautical and navy) ogin
    • 1780, William Cowper, “Light Shining out of Darkneſs”, in Twenty-ſix Letters on Religious Subjects [] To which are added Hymns [] , 4th edition, page 252:
      God moves in a myſterious way, / His wonders to perform; / He plants his footſteps in the ſea, / And rides upon the ſtorm.
    1. The ocean; the continuous body of salt water covering a majority of the Earth's surface.
      • 1611, The Holy Bible, [] (King James Version), London: [] Robert Barker, [], →OCLC, Leviticus 11:9, column 2:
        These ſhal ye eat, of all that are in the waters: whatsoeuer hath finnes and ſcales in the waters, in the ſeas, and in the riuers, them ſhall ye eate.
      • 1719, Nicholas Rowe, “Book V”, in Lucan's Pharsalia: Translated into English Verse, Dublin: James Carson, page 183:
        At length the universal Wreck appear'd,/ To Cæsar's self, ev'n worthy to be fear'd./ Why all these Pains, this Toil of Fate (he cries)/ This Labour of the Seas, and Earth, and Skies?/ All Nature, and the Gods at once alarm'd,/ Against my little Boat and me are arm'd.
      • 1833, William Hazlitt, “Notes of a Journey Through France and Italy”, in Greenbank's Periodical Library, volume I, chapter 1, page 173:
        There is something in being near the sea, like the confines of eternity. It is a new element, a pure abstraction. The mind loves to hover on that which is endless, and forever the same. People wonder at a steam-boat, the invention of man, managed by man, that makes its liquid path like an iron railway through the sea—I wonder at the sea itself, that vast Leviathan, rolled round the earth, smiling in its sleep, waked into fury, fathomless, boundless, a huge world of water-drops.—Whence is it, whither goes it, is it of eternity, or of nothing?
      • 1922 March, J. S. Fletcher, “The Mystery of Ravensdene Court”, in Everybody's Magazine, volume XLVI, number 3, page 162:
        As we stood there watching, the long yellow light on the eastern horizon suddenly changed in color—first to a roseate flush, then to a warm crimson; the scenes round us, sky, sea, and land, brightened as if by magic.
    2. A body of salt water smaller than an ocean, generally forming part of, or connecting with, an ocean or a larger sea.
      The Mediterranean Sea, the Caribbean Sea, the Sea of Crete, etc.
  2. A lake, especially if large or if salty or brackish.
    The Caspian Sea, the Sea of Galilee, the Salton Sea, etc.
  3. The swell of the sea; a single wave; billow.
    • 1792, William Bligh, chapter II, in A Voyage to the South Sea, [] in His Majesty’s Ship The Bounty, [], London: [] George Nicol, [], →OCLC, page 14:
      One ſea broke away the ſpare yards and ſpars out of the ſtarboard main chains. Another heavy ſea broke into the ſhip and ſtove all the boats. Several caſks of beer, that had been laſhed upon deck, were broke looſe and waſhed overboard, and it was not without great difficulty and riſk that we were able to ſecure the boats from being waſhed away entirely.
    • 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 187:
      "If they buy three cords of birch logs," said the witch, "but they must be exact measure and no bargaining about the price, and if they throw overboard the one cord of logs, piece by piece, when the first sea comes, and the other cord, piece by piece, when the second sea comes, and the third cord, piece by piece, when the third sea comes, then it's all over with us."
    • 1952, Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea:
      There was a small sea rising with the wind coming up from the east and at noon the old man's left hand was uncramped.
    • 2020 June 8, National Weather Service Boston, 2:38 PM EDT marine forecast
      High pressure will maintain light winds and flat seas through Tue night. ... Potential for briefly choppy 3 ft seas near South Coast...
  4. (attributive, in combination) Living or used in or on the sea; of, near, or like the sea.
    Seaman, sea gauge, sea monster, sea horse, sea level, seaworthy, seaport, seaboard, etc.
  5. (figurative) Anything resembling the vastness or turbulence of the sea.
    • 1604, William Shakespeare, The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke, London: Nicholas Ling:
      To be, or not to be, that is the question,/ Whether tis nobler in the minde to suffer/ The slings and arrowes of outragious fortune,/ Or to take Armes against a sea of troubles,/ And by opposing, end them, to die to sleepe/ No more, and by a sleepe, to say we end/ The hart-ake, and the thousand naturall shocks/ That flesh is heire to.
    • 1980, Patria Crone, Slaves on Horseback: The Evolution of the Islamic Polity, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN:
      Secondly, in terms of geopolitics Central Asia was a huge sea of barbarians set in the midst of interlocking continents. Thanks to its border on the Siberian forest in the north, it was open to barbarian incomers who would upset existing polities and set migrations going.
    • 2013 April 9, Andrei Lankov, “Stay Cool. Call North Korea’s Bluff.”, in New York Times:
      In the last two decades, North Korea has on various occasions conducted highly provocative missile and nuclear tests and promised to turn Seoul into a sea of fire.
  6. (physics) A constant flux of gluons splitting into quarks, which annihilate to produce further gluons.
  7. (planetology) A large, dark plain of rock; a mare.
    The Apollo 11 mission landed in the Sea of Tranquility.
  8. (planetology) A very large lake of liquid hydrocarbon.

Derived terms

Names of seas
Terms derived from sea (other)

Translations

See also

See also

References

  1. Vladimir Orel, A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, s.v. "saiwiz" (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2003), 314.
  2. Kroonen, Guus (2013) Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 11), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN

Further reading

Anagrams

Cimbrian

Etymology

From Middle High German , from Old High German sēo, from Proto-West Germanic *saiwi, from Proto-Germanic *saiwiz (sea, ocean). Cognate with German See, English sea.

Noun

sea m

  1. (Luserna) lake

References

Estonian

Noun

sea

  1. genitive singular of siga

Garo

Verb

sea

  1. to write

Derived terms

Irish

Alternative forms

Etymology

is + ea (literally, "it is")

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ʃa/

Adverb

sea

  1. yes (to copula questions)
  2. right, well (topic introducer)

Usage notes

This is a contraction of an affirmative response to a question, and is found in response to questions where the key verb is is or a present tense form thereof:

Q: An féidir leat cuidiú liom? — "Can you help me?" (literally, "Possible for you to help me?")
A: Sea. — "Yes."

Informally it may also be found as the answer to a question with a main verb, though this is considered incorrect. The standard response to such a question is to repeat the verb:

Q: Ar chuala tú mé? — "Did you hear me?"
A: Chuala. — "Yes" (literally, "Heard") or informally Sea.

Antonyms

Middle English

Noun

sea

  1. Alternative form of see (sea)

Mòcheno

Etymology

From Middle High German , from Old High German sēo, from Proto-West Germanic *saiwi, from Proto-Germanic *saiwiz (sea, ocean). Cognate with German See, English sea.

Noun

sea m

  1. lake

References

Old Irish

Determiner

sea

  1. Alternative spelling of so

Old Swedish

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Old Norse séa (West Norse sjá), from Proto-Germanic *sehwaną.

Verb

sēa

  1. to see

Conjugation

Descendants

  • Swedish: se, sia

Plautdietsch

Adverb

sea

  1. very, intensely

Spanish

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈsea/ [ˈse.a]
  • Rhymes: -ea
  • Syllabification: se‧a

Verb

sea

  1. inflection of ser:
    1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
    2. third-person singular imperative

See also

Tongan

Etymology

Borrowed from English chair.

Noun

sea

  1. chair

Wolio

Etymology

From Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *səjəm.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /sea/

Noun

sea

  1. ant

References

  • Anceaux, Johannes C. (1987) Wolio Dictionary (Wolio-English-Indonesian) / Kamus Bahasa Wolio (Wolio-Inggeris-Indonesia), Dordrecht: Foris
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