Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of various colonial corals of the order Gorgonacea (or Alcyonacea), having a usually branched skeleton of horny material and polyps with eight tentacles, and including the sea fans, sea feathers, and red corals.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • See gorgonean.
  • Of or pertaining to Gorgonia.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Pertaining to, or resembling, a Gorgon; terrifying into stone; terrific.
  • adjective (Zoöl.) Pertaining to the Gorgoniacea.
  • noun (Zoöl.) One of the Gorgoniacea.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun biology Any coral of the order Gorgonacea.
  • adjective Of or relating to the Gorgons.
  • adjective Terrible or repulsive.
  • adjective biology Of or relating to any coral of the order Gorgonacea.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun corals having a horny or calcareous branching skeleton

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Latin gorgonia, coral, from Gorgō, Gorgon-, Gorgon; see Gorgon.]

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word gorgonian.

Examples

  • Reef gardens are embellished with scarlet and orange staircase sponges and feathery gorgonian fans with their bright yellow branches.

    Brenda Peterson: Gulf Oil Spill Meets Dead Zone: What Lies Beneath 2010

  • The red gorgonian, Paragorgia arborea, occurs on these reefs.

    Human impacts on the biodiversity of the Arctic 2009

  • Sponges make up 70% of their diet with the rest of their diet consisting of gorgonian polyps, other invertebrates, and algae.

    Coral reef fish feeding behavior in the Caribbean 2008

  • French Angelfish (Pomacanthus paru) forage in a similar manner, but they consume less gorgonian polyps and algae.

    Coral reef fish feeding behavior in the Caribbean 2008

  • “Growth and composition of high-Mg calcite in the skeleton of a Bermudian gorgonian Plexaurella dichotoma: Potential for paleothermometry”

    Pollack and Schrag at the NAS Panel « Climate Audit 2006

  • A potentially-important recent advance is the use of SIMS secondary-ion mass spectrometry on gorgonian corals—which live at all depths, from the poles to the equator.

    Pollack and Schrag at the NAS Panel « Climate Audit 2006

  • Because I'm supposed to be studying venoms, peptdies, and antifeedants in gorgonian corals at the moment, and I am finding it rather difficult to concentrate, I ask all of you this burning question:

    Coffee. Sigh mariness 2005

  • So tonight we settled in happily expecting to learn about shark repellents made by the Pacific sole -- a long and fascinating subject if you are a Pacific sole, and rather dull if you're aren't -- only to be energized by the professor's discussion of how he had isolated a particular toxin from a gorgonian those pretty, wavy soft corals that you see in various marine pictures.

    Mornings. Grumble mariness 2005

  • Small gorgonian fans, yellow feather stars and red soft corals cling to the thick roots.

    The Globe and Mail - Home RSS feed Darryl Leniuk 2011

  • Antibacterial and antilarval compounds from marine gorgonian-associated bacterium

    Naturejobs - All Jobs Cheng-Hai Gao 2010

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.