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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

sea.

A large body of salt water.

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/siː//seɪ/obsolete
  1. A large body of salt water.

  2. A large body of salt water. The ocean; the continuous body of salt water covering a majority of the Earth's surface.

  3. A large body of salt water. 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.
  4. A lake, especially if large or if salty or brackish.

    The Caspian Sea, the Sea of Galilee, the Salton Sea, etc.
  5. A single wave; billow.

  6. The swell of the sea, especially when high or rough.

  7. Living or used in or on the sea; of, near, or like the sea.

    attributive · in-compounds
    Seaman, sea gauge, sea monster, sea horse, sea level, seaworthy, seaport, seaboard, etc.
  8. Anything resembling the vastness or turbulence of the sea in mass, size or quantity.

    figuratively
  9. A constant flux of gluons splitting into quarks, which annihilate to produce further gluons.

  10. A large, dark plain of rock; a mare.

    The Apollo 11 mission landed in the Sea of Tranquility.
  11. A very large lake of liquid hydrocarbon.

Where this word comes from

Inherited from Middle English see, from Old English sǣ, from Proto-West Germanic *saiwi (“body of water”), from Proto-Germanic *saiwiz, itself either: * Derived from Proto-Indo-European *sh₂ey-wo- (“to be fierce, afflict”). Related to Latin saevus (“wild, fierce”), Tocharian B saiwe (“itch”), and Latvian sievs, sīvs (“sharp, biting”). More at sore. * Derived from Proto-Germanic *sīhwaną (“to percolate, filter”), from Proto-Indo-European *seykʷ-. Cognates Cognate with Yola zea, zee (“sea”), North Frisian See, sia, siie (“sea; lake”), Saterland Frisian See, Säi (“sea”), West Frisian see (“sea”), Cimbrian and Mòcheno sea (“lake”), Dutch zee (“sea”), German and German Low German See (“sea”), Limburgish Sië, zieë (“sea, ocean; lake”), Luxembourgish Séi (“lake”), West Flemish zji (“sea; seaside”), Danish sø (“sea; lake”), Faroese sjógvur (“sea; big wave”), Icelandic sjár, sjór, sær (“sea”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk sjø (“sea, ocean; lake”), Swedish sjö (“sea; lake; big wave”), Gothic 𐍃𐌰𐌹𐍅𐍃 (saiws, “lake, sea; marshland”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.